Consolidate Shared Info Simplify Structure/Delivery
One source, easy retrieval and usage. Information shared agency-wide or even inter-agency can be shared and delivered to end users or applications in a standard structure agreed upon by a consortium. Instances of information can be stored or cached at multiple nodes and refreshed regularly. An example: NASA can host science publications and author information as searchable XML in a structure web developers agency-wide ...more »
One source, easy retrieval and usage.
Information shared agency-wide or even inter-agency can be shared and delivered to end users or applications in a standard structure agreed upon by a consortium. Instances of information can be stored or cached at multiple nodes and refreshed regularly.
An example: NASA can host science publications and author information as searchable XML in a structure web developers agency-wide agree upon. This information can be displayed by any website or application with access to the XML feed.
Currently, this kind of information is entered by any number of authors to any number of websites or applications. The result of this is a vast, disjointed collection and likely inconsistent information that takes much effort to normalize, alter or ingest into other systems.
Centralizing and standardizing by consortium would allow the development community to spend more time on development, maintain control over delivery vehicle, and have easy to use consistent data at their disposal. Developers can focus on new personal innovations instead.
Successful example of consortium-derived standards: RSS Feeds, HTML, CSS, Wordpress, et. al.
Possible areas that could be improved: medical records, personnel listing / records, publications, research highlights, training materials, education / outreach resources, inventory, procurement, logistics, intelligence, etc.
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