The DataNet Federation Consortium is a project within the NSF Office of Cyber-Infrastructure DataNet initiative. Five awards were made across two solicitations to develop national collaborations led by:
- Data Conservancy – Johns Hopkins University
- DataOne (Data Observation Network for Earth) – University of New Mexico
- DFC (DataNet Federation Consortium) – University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- SEAD (Sustainable Environment – Actionable Data) – University of Michigan
- TerraPopulus (A global population/environment data network) – University of Minnesota
The goal of the DataNet Federation Consortium is to assemble national data infrastructure that enables collaborative research, through federation of existing data management infrastructure.
The DFC seeks collaborations through six communities of practice that organize national expertise. The areas of expertise needed to build the national infrastructure include: Science and Engineering; Facilities and Operations; Technology and Research; Policies and Standards; Education and Outreach; and Sustainability. Each community of practice defines the related infrastructure and works with an extended group of experts to track evolution of the technology.
Each community of practice also defines the governance policies that are needed to enforce assertions about the national infrastructure.
