Chris Greer at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and Alan Blatecky of the National Science Foundation have prepared a concept paper outlining their thinking about what they call the DataWeb Forum, an organization to facilitate the exchange and interoperation of scientific data across disciplines and national boundaries. These ideas have been under development for some time, but Chris and Alan believe that it's now time to give the broad global community an opportunity to join in the discussion.  For convenience, I have placed a copy of their concept paper here

http://www.cni.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/DataWebForum_Concept_Paper.pdf

Chris and Alan would welcome comments and expressons of interest. They have included their email addresses at the end of the document.

Clifford Lynch
Director, CNI