Data commons

Definition
The data commons consists of

"the cyberinfrastructure for data preservation, retrieval and analysis, robust communications links for global access, and data scientists who direct the facility and can act as consultants and collaborators to the researchers served by the facility."

Overview
"A data commons may simultaneously support many short-term and long-lived collections, including multiple instances of research, resource and reference collections. As a result, a commons may also provide technologies and expertise to facilitate transitions between stages in the life cycle of a collection. A commons can be broadly enabling, allowing individual investigators who are not information specialists to launch and maintain digital data collections."