Advances in Standards Adoption for NASA's Earth Science Data Systems

Starting in January 2004, NASA instituted a set of internal working groups to develop ongoing recommendations for the continuing broad evolution of Earth Science Data Systems development and management within NASA. One of these Data Systems Working Groups is called the Standards Process Group. This group's goal is to facilitate broader use of standards that have proven implementation and operational benefit to NASA Earth science. The concept is different from past standards strategies in several ways. Most importantly, it allocates the choice of standards to the to the larger community of practice rather than to dedicated standards-making projects. Only after practices have been shown to have useful implementation and beneficial operation will they be adopted as standards. This presentation will describe NASA's Earth science data systems standards process including the status of several pending standards submissions