High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The vast scale of the oceans, the difficulty and expense of making measurements due to the hostility of the environment and the internationality of the marine environment has led to a culture of data sharing in the oceanographic data community. As far back as 1961 UNESCO`s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC)set up IODE (International Oceanographic Data Exchange, subsequently renamed International Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange to reflect the increasing importance of metadata) to enhance marine research, exploitation and development by facilitating the exchange of oceanographic data and information.