Individuals and organizations are encouraged to contact NASA's ESDIS Standards Coordination Office (ESCO) with suggestions for existing or developing standards and practices that are not already on the list of current standards and practices. ESCO provides support to submitters in creating or validating submissions to the standards process. Please email ESCO at esco-staff@lists.nasa.gov.

How to Prepare a Request for Comment Document

The Instructions to RFC Authors document provides information about how to prepare Requests for Comment (RFCs) documents. RFCs describe proposed standards, best practices, and/or guidelines. RFCs can be created by anyone and should be submitted to ESCO.

These instructions detail certain policies pertaining to the submission and publication of RFCs—acceptable document style, required and optional content, and packaging and file format requirements for all RFC submissions to the Earth Science Data Systems (ESDS) Program, from their initial submission until their final release as either an ESDS standard or a technical note.

Readers of Instructions to RFC Authors should be familiar with the ESDIS Standards Process. Those wishing to prepare and submit an RFC should contact ESCO for assistance.

The ESDS RFC Templates provide an annotated template that can be edited or copied to create an RFC document. Its use is encouraged but is not mandatory.