Knowledge Package

The box, in the model kit from the previous page.

A Knowledge Package is one Earth Observation application, shared with everything someone else needs to understand it and get to the same results. It is the unit you publish, the unit people find when they search, and the unit they cite.

What goes in the box

Whatever it takes to rebuild the work: the datasets you started from, the scripts and tools that processed them, the environment they ran in, the paper or note explaining the outcome, and the material that helps someone learn it. Each of those is a Knowledge Resource you add to the package.

Knowledge Package Your Earth Observation application DOI 10.60566/xxxxx-xxxxx v1.0

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  Space-based data
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  Scripts
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  Articles and notes
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  Webinars and videos

One Knowledge Package carries the Knowledge Resources of a single Earth Observation application, and includes DOI and metadata like title, description, authors and more.

The test is simple. If you handed the package to a colleague who was not on the project, could they get where you got?

What makes it a Package

Property	What it means for you
Atomic	One package, one application. Two applications are two packages.
Versioned	You can publish again. Each version is a complete, separate snapshot, and the old ones stay online.
Immutable once published	After publishing, the files and resources are frozen. To change them you create a new version, so nobody’s citation ever breaks.
Collaborative	Several people can build the same package together.
Curated	A package submitted to a community can be reviewed by an expert before it goes public.

Metadata is the exception to immutability

You can fix a typo in the title, add a missing author or improve the description at any time, on a published package, without creating a new version. Only files and resources are frozen.

From draft to published

A package is in one of two states: Draft while you are still working on it, and Published once it is public.

      flowchart LR
Create["Create<br/>(files, metadata,<br/>resources)"] --> Draft["Knowledge Package<br/>(Draft)<br/>edit freely"]
Draft -->|Publish| Published["Knowledge Package<br/>(Published)"]
Published -.->|New version| Draft
    

Click to expand

A package starts as a private draft you can edit freely. Publishing makes it public and freezes its contents. A new version starts the cycle again from a fresh draft.

Draft is yours. It is private, and you can change the metadata, the files and the resources as often as you like, or delete it.

Published is public. The files and resources are frozen, the package gets its DOI, and from here the only way to change content is a new version, which starts as a fresh draft.