The scope of the WG covers data sources from research and scholarly communication. Within this domain obstacles for wider application of brokering techniques are:
- Multiple service protocols for data discovery, access, and application or processing;
- Multiple content standards for data and metadata, augmented by Community profiles and non-standard implementations;
- Multiple vocabularies and ontologies.
- Multiple adaptation and mediation modules that are not guaranteed to be compatible.
Research projects and research data infrastructure initiatives often solve problems associated with this diversity as a matter of course, but the knowledge gained and components developed during such a process are not visible and useful to others. Furthermore, project life cycle limitations lead to lack of sustainability, loss of expertise, code, and infrastructure.