What quality control measures are in place for dbSEABED?
Quality control is practiced at many stages in dbSEABED: initially, by selecting which data sets to enter; by personnel scrutinizing the data at time of import, virtually item by item, for example for implausible values and positions not conforming to a report’s survey pattern on a map; in some cases special filtering programs are written, for example to detect implausible ship speeds between stations; by testing in programs whether the data entries are text (string), numeric, or a special formatted code as specified in the data model; in programs, testing if values lie within their plausible ranges, for example between -8 and 12 phi for grain sizes; by comparing site locations to land areas; in a more sophisticated way, comparing reported site water depths to a regional or global topography (such as etopo2); screening the program output values, also using plausibility filters; by having end-users of the data report any problems and having them fixed at source; this is exercising (“wor
