Data Centre Documents
The Data Centre Documents describe the organization, responsibilities and activities of the Data Centre.
The Documents considered here include the Data Centre Fact Sheet and
the Format Documentation. The Fact Sheet gives a summary of the Data
Centre Overview together with the Roles & Responsibilities of the
Data Centre and the Policies & Procedures of the Data Centre.
The Formats Documentation is a set of descriptions of the principal formats the Data Centre has selected for its operations
- The Fact Sheet
Ghana Oceanographic Data Centre (GODC) was inaugurated during the First
ODINAFRICA National Workshop held in Accra on the 15th & 16th
August 2002.
Members of the Ghana National Commission for Intergovernmental
Oceanographic Commission (GNC/IOC), Ghana National Commission for
UNESCO (GNC/UNESCO) and scientists from other participating
institutions were present. The participants signed an undertaking
to collaborate with the Centre and The Roles & Responsibilities
(See Annex I) and The Policies & Procedures of GODC were adopted
(See Annex II).
The Centre is responsible for Physical, Chemical, Biological and Geophysical Oceanographic Datasets.
GODC is hosted by the Marine Fisheries Research Division of the
Fisheries Department of the Ministry of Food & Agriculture, in Tema.
Format Documentation
The Formats used by Ghana Oceanographic Data Centre in the processing,
quality-control and analysis of marine datasets are as follows:
1. Principal Archive Formats
a) Ocean Station Data – Relational Database Management System (RDMS)
b) Smaller Files of Gridded Ocean Station Data – Surfer
c) Large Gridded Data and Satellite Data – Hierarchical Data Format (HDF)
d) Pictures – Tagged Image Format (TIF)
2. Metadata Format – Marine Environmental Data Inventory (MEDI)
3. Working Formats
a) Ocean Data View – TSV-O (Tab Separated Value)
b) Surfer - XYZ
4. Export Formats
–
TSV-O
5. GIS Product Formats – DXF (Digital Exchange Format) and SHP (Shape File)
6. Ancillary Formats – BLN and DXF