The Data Observation Network for Earth (DataONE) is poised to be the foundation of new innovative environmental science through a distributed framework and sustainable cyberinfrastructure that meets the needs of science and society for open, persistent, robust, and secure access to well-described and easily discovered Earth observational data. Supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation, DataONE will ensure preservation and access to multi-scale, multi-discipline, and multi-national science data. DataONE will transcend domain boundaries and make biological data available from the genome to the ecosystem; make environmental data available from atmospheric, ecological, hydrological, and oceanographic sources; provide secure and long-term preservation and access; and engage scientists, land-managers, policy makers, students, educators, and the public through logical access and intuitive visualizations. Most importantly, DataONE is not an end but a means to serve a broader range of science domains both directly and through interoperability with the DataONE distributed network.

DataONE (Data Observation Network for Earth) and the Data Conservancy (DC) are the first two projects funded through the NSF DataNet program. DataONE is a new virtual organization that will enable innovative environmental science through a distributed and sustainable cyberinfrastructure (CI) that meets the needs of science and society for open, persistent, robust, and secure access to well-described and easily discovered Earth observational data. This briefing will provide an overview of the CI being developed to support DataONE and related design, consultative, coordination, and governance processes now underway.

DataOne is a collaboration among many partner organizations, and is funded by the US National Science Foundation (NSF) under a Cooperative Agreement, award number 0830944.