Building the framework of the National Virtual Observatory: status report

The U.S. National Science Foundation is sponsoring the development of the infrastructure for the National Virtual Observatory via its Information Technology Research Program. This initiative combines expertise from astronomical observatories, data archive centers, university astronomy departments, and computer science and information technology groups at seventeen different organizations. This paper describes the nature of the project, our approach to managing and coordinating work across such a large collaboration, and the progress made thus far in the initial development activities (metadata standards, systems architecture, and science requirements definition).