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User registration 

Users from research and academic institutes:

Scientific and academic organisations can register to the SIMORC service and conclude a  User Licence Agreement  for their staff members for regular use and access to data sets. This Agreement is concluded between the organisation, represented by a central contactperson, and the SIMORC service. After acceptance of the registration request the central contactperson will be asked to nominate staff members for which a personal id – password will be activated.

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Under the User Licence Agreement registered users can log in from the shopping basket and submit requests for downloading and using selected data sets for research and educational purposes. Each request should contain a motivation why the user wants to use the data sets. All requests are registered in the SIMORC transaction register.

In case of "non-restricted (LI)" data sets the registered user gets access to the data sets for downloading without further communication with the SIMORC participant, that is listed as owner of the data sets. For downloading the personalised SIMORC transaction register will list a uniq URL per data set, that is de-activated after successful downloading. All downloads are again registered in the SIMORC transaction register.

In case of "restricted (RS)" data sets the requests are transferred to the SIMORC participant, that is listed as owner or contact on behalf of multiple owners, for consideration. The SIMORC participant has the right to withhold data sets or to ask for additional information for considering the user request for data sets. Its decision (approval / non-approval) is included in the SIMORC transaction register. Therefore the user should check its personalised SIMORC transaction register on a regular basis. It gives an overview of its submitted order requests, recent and historic, their status of processing, and a uniq URL per data set for downloading.

As part of the User Licence Agreement users are requested to provide feedback on the use of the data sets provided by the SIMORC service. Where possible users are requested to provide results or publications as appropriate. In case of use of data sets for a thesis, a digital copy of the resulting thesis is requested for inclusion in the SIMORC service.

All data set requests and downloads are registered in the SIMORC transaction register, that is monitored by the SIMORC operator and open for browsing by SIMORC participants. The transactions will be evaluated on a regular basis to verify that an inapproriate number of downloads or excessive volumes of data downloads are not being made by specific users. Such cases will be reported and discussed with the central contactperson of the Research or Academic institute, holding the User Licence, to seek clarification.

Users from non-scientific / non-academic organisations:
Non-scientific and non-academic users can also search freely in the SIMORC metadatabase and identify interesting data sets. For requesting access to data sets from the shopping basket these users are also required to register with the SIMORC service, and after acceptance will receive a personal id – password. This id – password also gives access to the personal Transaction Register. 

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 No matter the access restriction as indicated in the metadata (LI / RS) all requests for data access by non-scientific and non-academic users are always forwarded to the data set owners for consideration and possible negotiation. The owner can agree, but also deny access. The owner will communicate its decision (approval / non-approval) via the SIMORC Transaction Register.

SIMORC Data access principles:

  Scientific Users Non-Scientific Users
Data sets labelled:
LI = Available under licence
Direct access Request forwarded to owner
Data sets labelled:
RS = Restricted
Request forwarded to owner Request forwarded to owner

Priviledged access for data providers:
Staff from data providers has priviledged access to their own data sets. This implies that staff from Shell, Total and BP have unrestricted access to the data sets in SIMORC that are originating from their companies. This way SIMORC not only functions as a clearing house for industry metocean data but also as company database system. Staff members of Shell, Total and BP are encouraged to contact SIMORC to get their logon details.