The Materials Cloud Archive is an open repository for research data that are relevant to computational materials science. The main focus is to host data that help reproducing the results discussed in scientific publications.

The Materials Cloud Archive is built using the InvenioRDM framework developed at CERN. The frontend is implemented in React, while the backend is written in Python and uses technologies such as RabbitMQ, Redis and Celery for caching and tasks management. The Archive currently runs on a virtual machine hosted on Microsoft Azure.
Metadata are stored in a PostgreSQL database and are indexed in the OpenSearch search engine. Files are stored in the S3 object storage system of the Swiss National Supercomputing Center (CSCS, Switzerland). Backups of both data and metadata are maintained at two geographically distinct locations, the Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC, Germany) and the CINECA Supercomputing Centre (CINECA, Italy). In addition, a duplicate instance of the Materials Cloud Archive runs on a virtual machine at CINECA (materialscloud-archive-failover.cineca.it) and serves as a failover system in case of issues with the production server.

Submissions to the Materials Cloud Archive are expected to be of interest and value to the field; they will receive persistent DOIs and a guaranteed lifetime of at least 10 years from submission.

Experimental works are currently accepted only from authors affiliated with Materials Cloud partners, or when the work relates to published computational results, e.g. confirming or disproving them.

To submit a record to the Materials Cloud Archive you are asked to fill in a form with the research data and associated metadata that will appear in the final record - these include the title of the submission, its authors, a meaningful abstract/description, and other metadata as described in the Guidelines to fill in the upload form in the submission instructions.

Note that to do this you must register with the Materials Cloud Archive. This is needed so that you will be able to (1) create new versions of records that have been accepted and published on the Materials Cloud Archive, (2) update their references and keywords, and (3) have access to your personal work area with all records you submitted to the Archive. In addition, moderators can contact you for any comments/explanations during the moderation process, and notifications can be sent to you regarding the status of your record throughout the entire submission process.

A preliminary DOI is assigned immediately upon submission. The DOI for a draft record will not resolve until a moderator’s approval, but will remain unchanged, and can be used elsewhere to refer to the record (e.g. in a scientific journal publication that is being prepared). After submission, the record will be reviewed by a moderator within one week (see moderation policies); moderators may ask for clarifications or revisions, to uphold the standards of the archive, or even decline records deemed out of scope. Once your record is approved, it will appear on the Materials Cloud Archive and its DOI will start resolving. The record will also receive a Materials Cloud record ID, that plays the same role that the volume and article number do in a standard publication.

For further questions, please consult the FAQs or contact us at archive@materialscloud.org.