The OpenEarth philosophy related to data involves that important data sets, rather than working on a project-by-project basis, should be collected and be made available in a project-superceding manner. OpenEarth intends all datasets to conform with a number of basic quality criteria:

• raw data should be stored in the OpenEarthRawData repository enabling version control
• raw data should then be enriched with metadata using transformation scripts also put under version control in the OpenEarthRawData repository
• resulting data products should conform to the best open source standards available
• data products should be made available easily via webbased interfaces

To achieve this international standards are embraced like:

• NetCDF
• CF parameter meta-data
• EPSG
• Spatial meta-data codes
• INSPIRE owner meta-data
• OPeNDAP (as running operationally for Rijkswaterstaat MATROOS), and
• OpenGIS
  • web map services (WMS),
  • web coverage services (WCS), and
  • web feature services (WFS).

The link between these standards is illustrated in the figure below.

The data collection procedure and the relation between those standards is explained in the OpenEarth Data Standards document, developed in the framework of the EU FP7 Project MICORE.