The DoD Net-Centric Data Strategy (NCDS), published in May 2003, describes a vision for a net-centric environment and the data goals for achieving that vision [1]. The NCDS goals for data—make it visible, accessible, understandable, interoperable, and trusted—will lead to the information exchange that is essential to net-centricity. When producers post data to shared spaces, they make it available to unanticipated users and applications, leading to improved flexibility and increased warfighter agility.
Communities of Interest (COIs) are a key element of the NCDS. The COI concept was introduced as an alternative to DoD-wide data element standardization. COIs are defined as "collaborative groups of users who must exchange information in pursuit of their shared goals, interests, missions, or business processes and who therefore must have shared vocabulary for the information they exchange." They promote data visibility through metadata catalogs, which contain discovery metadata enabling consumers to find data assets that meet their needs. They promote data accessibility through shared spaces, which permit consumers to retrieve needed data, while still enforcing policy on access control and priority. They promote data understandability through shared vocabularies, comprised of semantic artifacts (dictionaries, data models, taxonomies, ontologies, etc.), which help the member establish a shared understanding of the data they exchange.
COIs and the NCDS are new ideas—the policy, procedure, and technology aspects are not completely worked out. It is reasonable to anticipate both difficulties in getting it right and risks of getting it wrong. For this reason, the NCDS calls for pilot activities with "trial COIs" to generate experience that will be the basis for refining the COI construct. These pilot activities are under way. In addition, certain COI-like activities, predating the NCDS, have provided useful experience.
This paper summarizes the author's experience with nine such COIs. It presents nine observations generalizing from this experience. Based on those observations, it makes nine recommendations, some of which might be followed by individual COIs, some concerning the COI concept in general.
