CERN Open Data Portal

Website: http://opendata.cern.ch/
Category: Datasets
Tags: datasets, physics, open-data
Provider: CERN
Brand Logo: https://home.cern/sites/home.web.cern.ch/themes/custom/cern/logo.svg
Images:

• https://opendata.cern.ch/static/img/opendata-logo.png
• https://cds.cern.ch/record/2111358/files/CERN-PHOTO-201509-195-2.jpg

Overview

The CERN Open Data Portal provides open access to more than five petabytes of particle-physics data from experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and related facilities. It hosts datasets, software, analysis environments, and documentation intended for research, education, and data science applications.

Features

Data and Content Types

• Datasets: Searchable catalog of physics datasets, including collision data and derived data products.
• Software: Access to software used for data processing, analysis, and simulation.
• Environments: Computing and analysis environments for working with open data.
• Documentation: Guides, tutorials, technical notes, and glossary for understanding and using the data.
• News items: Regularly updated announcements about new data releases, features, and experiment contributions.

Search and Discovery

• Search by type:
  • Datasets (/search?type=Dataset)
  • Software (/search?type=Software)
  • Environments (/search?type=Environment)
  • Documentation (/search?type=Documentation)
• Search examples and filters:
  • Collision datasets (e.g., /search?subtype=Collision&type=Dataset)
  • Keyword search (e.g., keywords=education, keywords=datascience)
  • Collision energy filters (e.g., collision_energy=7TeV).
• Experiment-based browsing:
  • ALICE, ATLAS, CMS, DELPHI, LHCb, OPERA, PHENIX, TOTEM (each with dedicated search filters like /search?experiment=ATLAS).

Experiment Coverage

• LHC and related experiments:
  • ALICE
  • ATLAS
  • CMS
  • DELPHI
  • LHCb
  • OPERA
  • PHENIX
  • TOTEM
• External links to experiment homepages for additional context and resources.

Education and Training Resources

• Guides and reports:
  • CMS Guide to education use of CMS Open Data.
  • Improving educational content with high school teachers: A field report from our summer students.
  • Getting Started with LHCb Open Data.
  • Getting Started with ALICE Open Data.
• Glossary:
  • Dedicated glossary to explain terminology used in high‑energy physics and the portal.
• Educational datasets and releases:
  • Specific releases targeting education and outreach (e.g., ATLAS open data for education and outreach).

Research-Oriented Resources

• Research guides:
  • CMS Guide to research use of CMS Open Data.
  • ATLAS Higgs Machine Learning Challenge documentation.
• Research data releases:
  • ATLAS heavy-ion open data for research.
  • ATLAS large‑scale open data releases (e.g., 65 TB for research).
  • DELPHI full data collection release.
  • TOTEM initial open data release.
• Data science applications:
  • Dedicated keyword search for data science-related content.

Visualisation Tools

• Event displays:
  • CMS Event Display for interactive viewing of CMS collision events.
  • OPERA Event Display for OPERA experiment events.
• Histogram visualisation:
  • CMS Histograms interface for exploring distributions and analysis outputs.

Infrastructure and Access

• Scale of data:
  • More than five petabytes of open particle-physics data.
• Cold storage:
  • Support for cold storage of datasets (as described in the Introducing cold storage in the CERN Open Data portal documentation) for long‑term preservation and access.
• Terms and policies:
  • Clear Terms of Use and Privacy Policy for data access and reuse.

Community and Updates

• News & Updates:
  • Time‑stamped news posts from CERN Open Data team and experiment collaborations on new releases and features.
• Community channels:
  • Help and Q&A via an external forum.
  • Issue tracking and development feedback on GitHub.
  • Announcements and updates via Twitter.

Pricing

• Access to the CERN Open Data Portal and its datasets is provided as open data. No pricing or paid plans are indicated in the available content.

Legal & Usage

• Terms of Use: Published, defining conditions for using, citing, and redistributing the data.
• Privacy Policy: Available, covering how user and access data are handled.
• Attribution: Usage generally requires appropriate citation of the portal and the contributing experiments (details in Terms of Use and individual dataset pages).