The International Federation of Data Organizations & RDA
As research communities in disciplines outside the social sciences are beginning to recognize the need for global coordination, they see the same needs that the founders of IFDO recognized years ago. To meet this growing need across the academy, organizations like Research Data Alliance (RDA) have prospered. Its mission is to build the social and technical infrastructure that would enable open sharing of data. By many measures RDA has been a success and is helping many disciplines. IFDO’s goal in RDA is to energize and amplify the voice of diverse social science archives around the globe. IFDO has much to offer emerging groups like the Research Data Alliance, and exposure within RDA would greatly enhance IFDO’s visibility around the world. RDA members would learn from the vast knowledge acquired over nearly 40 years of collaboration within IFDO, and IFDO will have a voice in this new community doing wonderful things for research data collaboration. Smaller archives around the world will have a voice in the field and enhance the discovery, sharing, and archiving of valuable social science research data. IFDO members offer wonderful application sites for products of RDA working groups. IFDO would like to thank the Alfred P Sloan foundation for supporting this effort.