Are you working with ocean data, or planning to? Good data is only as useful as it is trustworthy. A new free online course, Data quality assurance and quality control in the Ocean Decade, shows how to make sure it is.

The course is aimed at early career ocean professionals working, or wanting to work, in data, data management or research, as well as Ocean Decade Actions. It will help them understand why quality control matters, describe the quality processes their data have been through in the metadata shared with global ocean data systems, and carry out basic quality control themselves. Some knowledge of ocean data and basic data management is recommended.

Participants will explore the data lifecycle, recommended QA/QC standards and the common problems caused by poor data quality. They will also look at quality control in a range of thematic areas: biodiversity, forecasting, bathymetry, microplastics, metocean data, marine megafauna and citizen science.

The course takes about 20 hours and is taught in English. It includes two optional one-hour live sessions (provisionally 24 November and 10 December), and a certificate is awarded to those who complete all lessons and quizzes.

Enrolment is open from 1 November to 4 December 2026, for up to 100 participants.