How to Get Involved
To learn more about the NDS Initiative and what we aim to accomplish, you can:
- read about the NDS concept and vision
- learn about some of our current projects and activities
- get email updates about current and upcoming activities and events by joining our nds-announce mailing list
- discuss technical and organizational issues by joining one or more of our discussion lists
The NDS Consortium is a coalition of research data users and provider created to guide the development and operation of the NDS. Its membership is open to individuals and organizations interested in seeing the NDS vision realized. See the Consortium information page for more information on how to join.
The NDS Consortium sponsors workshops to advance the NDS through pilot projects, working groups, and organizational development. Visit our events page to find out about the next meeting or see outcomes from past meetings. You can request an invitation to a meeting by emailing info@nationaldataservice.org.
We are working to build a community of developers to help create an open, extendable software base for NDS services and tools. We are cultivating that community through several channels of effort:
- We sponsor pilot projects focused on particular problems or capabilities required by the NDS. Some of these take advantage of NDS Labs, a developer's workbench environment for building NDS capabilities
- We sponsor hackathons to inspire innovative solutions and encourage the creation of "glue" that can connect different technologies together.
Software that comes out of these projects are intended to be open. To observe their progress and make your contributions, check out the NDS software projects at GitHub and Bitbucket .
Documents that help define and guide the NDS Consortium are developed through an open, community process. We count members to review, comment, and refine these documents.