The following table contains file formats recommended by TERN for data preservation, publication and reuse. The list was developed based on the Library of Congress Recommended Formats Statement 2020-2021.

If you are unsure about the suitable data file format, don't hesitate to get in touch with us at esupport@tern.org.au for clarification.

Data types

Recommended Formats

Still images (e.g., bio-imaging)

Note: we accept camera raw image file, which then will be converted into the recommended format for publication).

  • JPEG

  • TIFF

  • PNG

Audio works (e.g., bioacoustics)

  • Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC)

  • Wav

Geospatial vector

  • ESRI Shapefile

  • GML

Geospatial raster (e.g., remote sensing gridded data products; soil and landscape grid)

  • Geo-referenced TIFF

  • Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF (COG)

  • NOTE: Make sure the Protocol for Data Services is specified and correct:

    • For data hosted on tern.data.org.au, the protocol is usually HTTP.

    • For data hosted on Geoserver (i.e., uses WMS, WCS, etc.) copy the title and layer name from the Geoserver.

Sensor time series (e.g., ecology plot-based survey and inventory data, flux)

  • Comma-separated values (CSV)

  • Tab-delimited file

  • NetCDF (for multidimensional array)

Textual works

  • PDF/UA, PDF/A or PDF

  • OpenDocument Text

  • Plain text (.txt).

  • NOTE: All Word documents (.docx) need to be converted to a pdf format before submitting