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F. Genova (CDS), P. Benvenuti (ST-ECF/ESA), D.S. De Young (NOAO), R.J. Hanisch (STScI), A. Lawrence (ROE), T. Linde (University of Leicester), P.J. Quinn (ESO), A.S. Szalay (JHU), N.A. Walton (IoA/University of Cambridge), R. D. Williams (Caltech)
There are now three major initiatives underway related to the virtual observatory. In the United States, the NSF's Information Technology Program is funding a project led by A. Szalay and R. Williams entitled "Building the Framework for the Virtual Observatory". Europe is sponsoring two programs: the Astrophysical Virtual Observatory (funded by the European Commission and led by P. Quinn) and AstroGrid (funded by the UK e-science program and led by A. Lawrence). Other national initiatives are forming in, e.g., Germany, India, Chile, Japan, and Australia.
These VO projects are all strongly science driven, and aim to satisfy diverse scientific demands while accommodating possibly different priorities. Thus the VO projects will offer a wide range of functionalities. At the same time, it is clear that the underlying fabric upon which the VO's are built must have a high degree of commonality to ensure accessibility and functionality as the international VO becomes an operational reality.
Thus, the major VO projects are working together to identify and agree upon these common elements that facilitate both the commonality and diversity in functionality required by the users of the international VO. Some of these common elements have to do with standards for data and interfaces. Some involve policy and yet others have to do with funding and securing international support at governmental levels. Effort is already underway in the development of metadata standards, and the joint leadership of the NVO, AVO, and AstroGrid projects is drafting an international VO roadmap.
If you would like more information about this abstract, please follow the link to http://www.us-vo.org/, http://www.eso.org/avo, http://www.astrogrid.org. This link was provided by the author. When you follow it, you will leave the Web site for this meeting; to return, you should use the Back comand on your browser.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: genova@astro.u-strasbg.fr
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 34
© 2002. The American Astronomical Soceity.