- individual spectra or Suites can be rated and/or commented on by
anyone, giving "Amazon-like" reviews.
- in order to upload or comment, one has to log in by email address.
The ratings and reviews are meant to provide some mechanism for data quality assurance, but to avoid having one person "police" the data before it can be added. This is trying to recognize that no one person can actually curate all the spectra, that truly bad data can be best identified by experts on that system, and also that there is actually some value to imperfect data.
The requirements for data to be uploaded are fairly minimal except that the data must be in XDI format (basically so that metadata can be parsed easily and the columns are well-labeled), and that the monochromator lattice constant must be provided (so that energy re-calibration can be done if needed). We can help translate existing data into XDI so it can be uploaded into this database.
There are several features to add or improve including:
- adding some information about energy resolution.
- being able to export a Suite of spectra as a single zip file or Athena project.
- better web page interface to setting citation information.
- better web page interface to setting sample information.
But suggestions from anyone would be greatly appreciated.
Finally, although the database is meant to provide a public, on-line databases useful to anyone, and uses modern relational database engines as the backend, the software can actually run on an individual machine to provide a local, private database of XAS spectra, with the same web-based interface. This is not very well documented at the moment, but if anyone is interested in trying to set such a database at their home institution, let me know.