Frequently asked questions

No. You can browse public datasets and explore many NOMAD services without signing in. An account is only required if you want to upload, manage, share, or publish your own data.

Yes. NOMAD Central Platform is freely available to the scientific community, and NOMAD Oasis is distributed as open-source software. While institutions deploying NOMAD Oasis are responsible for providing their own computing and storage infrastructure, there are no licensing fees associated with NOMAD itself.

NOMAD Central Platform is the publicly hosted community service for publishing and exploring materials science data. NOMAD Oasis is a self-hosted deployment for institutions and research groups that require greater control over how and where their data are managed, while remaining fully compatible with the NOMAD ecosystem.

No. NOMAD Central Platform is a web-based platform that can be accessed directly through your browser. Installation is only required if you wish to deploy your own NOMAD Oasis instance.

No. NOMAD provides a user-friendly web interface for data management, documentation, and publication. Advanced users can additionally make use of APIs and custom schemas.

Yes. NOMAD Oasis can be deployed within institutional infrastructures, including secure and offline environments. This allows organisations to manage sensitive or unpublished data while maintaining compatibility with the NOMAD ecosystem.

Zenodo is a general-purpose repository for sharing and preserving research outputs across all scientific disciplines. NOMAD is a domain-specific platform for materials science that supports the management, documentation, analysis, and publication of scientific data. Unlike Zenodo, NOMAD understands materials science data formats, automatically extracts and structures (meta)data from raw files, and provides integrated ELN, workflows, and analysis tools.

NOMAD provides tools and workflows to support high-quality and FAIR research data, including schema-based storage, automatic metadata extraction and validation. However, the responsibility for the scientific accuracy and completeness of published data remains with the data providers.

Some datasets and collections may undergo additional curation by research groups or community initiatives, but NOMAD itself does not perform scientific peer review of all submitted data.

NOMAD supports data from the entire materials science research domain, including experimental, computational, and synthesis data. It is designed to handle both raw and processed datasets alongside their associated metadata.

NOMAD supports hundreds of scientific file formats through its parser ecosystem. Supported data include simulation outputs, measurement files, microscopy images, spectroscopy data, laboratory records, and many community-specific formats. For a full list of supported file formats check this link.

Yes. NOMAD includes integrated ELN functionality that enables researchers to document experiments, samples, procedures, and measurements. It provides a range of built-in templates for common materials science use cases and allows users to create custom ELN schemas tailored to their research needs.

Custom ELN templates can be defined using YAML in NOMAD Central Platform or implemented as Python plugins in NOMAD Oasis. ELN entries can be linked directly to datasets, workflows, and publications, while integrations with tools such as NOMAD CAMELS support automated metadata and data capture.

Data uploaded to NOMAD Central Platform are securely stored and managed at the Max Planck Computing and Data Facility (MPCDF) in Germany. For NOMAD Oasis deployments, data are stored within the infrastructure chosen by the hosting institution or research group, allowing organisations to meet their specific operational, privacy, and compliance requirements.

Content uploaded to NOMAD Central Platform is kept and made available for at least 10 years. NOMAD is committed to the long-term preservation of research data and will make every effort to ensure continued accessibility beyond this period.

For NOMAD Oasis deployments, data retention policies are determined by the hosting institution or research group and may vary depending on local requirements and available resources.

Yes. NOMAD allows users to export projects (including data and metadata) for backup or migration purposes. Institutions running NOMAD Oasis can additionally implement their own backup and preservation strategies.

Yes. NOMAD allows users to share projects with collaborators and define access permissions. This enables teams to work together efficiently while maintaining control over unpublished research data.

Yes. NOMAD can be included in a data management plan as the platform used to collect, structure, store, share, and publish materials science research data. NOMAD Central Platform provides managed storage, controlled collaboration, standardized metadata, long-term preservation, and publication with a DOI. NOMAD Oasis offers the same data-management capabilities on infrastructure operated by your institution or research group.

The DMP should still describe which data will be collected, who can access them, when they will be published, and any applicable retention, licensing, ethical, or institutional requirements. Researchers remain responsible for ensuring that their plan meets the requirements of their funder and institution.

Yes. NOMAD Central Platform allows users to publish datasets with Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs), making them citable, discoverable, and reusable. Published datasets are accompanied by rich metadata and are registered through DataCite, ensuring persistent and long-term access to the scientific record.

NOMAD is designed to help researchers make their data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable. Published projects can receive persistent DOIs and rich searchable metadata; data and metadata can be accessed through the web interface, and open APIs; standardized schemas provide machine-readable, interoperable representations; and raw files, metadata, provenance, and contextual information support reuse and reproducibility.

FAIRness is not a simple platform-level certification. The degree to which a particular dataset is FAIR also depends on the completeness and quality of the metadata, documentation, licensing, and files supplied by its authors. NOMAD provides the infrastructure and tools, while data providers remain responsible for describing and publishing their data appropriately.

No. Once data have been published in NOMAD Central Platform, they cannot be modified or deleted by the submitter. Published projects are immutable to ensure the integrity, reproducibility, and long-term availability of scientific records.

If additional data or corrections are needed, they must be provided as a new project. In exceptional circumstances, such as legal, ethical, or privacy concerns, requests for the removal of published data may be submitted to the NOMAD support team for review.

There is currently no fixed storage quota per user in NOMAD Central Platform. However, individual projects are limited to 32 GB in size, and users may have up to 10 unpublished projects at any given time. To ensure the quality and usability of published data, only projects containing at least one recognised entry are eligible for publication. These limits apply to NOMAD Central Platform and may differ for institutional deployments using NOMAD Oasis.

No. NOMAD Central Platform is a shared public service and does not allow users to install custom plugins. This ensures a stable, secure, and consistent experience for all users.

Institutions and research groups that require custom functionality can deploy NOMAD Oasis, which supports the installation of Python-based plugins for extending parsers, schemas, applications, and other NOMAD services.

Yes. The NOMAD Discord server serves as the primary helpdesk and community support channel for NOMAD users. It provides a direct way to ask questions, receive technical assistance, report issues, and engage with both the NOMAD team and the wider user community.

Bug reports and feature requests can be submitted through the NOMAD GitHub repository or discussed with the NOMAD team on Discord.

NOMAD is developed and maintained by an international team of researchers, software engineers, and data experts. The software is primarily developed within FAIRmat and builds on the long-standing expertise and infrastructure established through the NOMAD Center of Excellence and related initiatives.

NOMAD is an open-source project, and contributions from the wider scientific community are welcome.

NOMAD Central Platform is actively maintained by the NOMAD team and follows a regular release cycle, with new stable releases typically published every 2–3 months. Prior to each release, one or more release candidates (RCs) are made available for testing by the community and external NOMAD Oasis administrators.

Updates are deployed to NOMAD Central Platform by the NOMAD team. For NOMAD Oasis, however, the timing of updates is determined by the local administrator, allowing institutions to adopt new releases according to their own requirements and maintenance schedules.

Information about new releases, features, and important updates is shared through the NOMAD Discord server, release notes, and newsletters. We encourage users to join the NOMAD community on Discord to stay informed and engage directly with the development team and other users.