Ready access to data is a key concern in both basic research and problem-solving in the biological sciences, as the scale and scope of the questions that researchers ask expand, and as global problems demand data collected from around the world. With a grant from the National Science Foundation, the Ecological Society of America has been facilitating a series of workshops on data sharing, to help the ecology, evolution, and organismal biology communities find common ground on how to make data more readily discoverable and accessible in their own disciplines. Speakers in this session will discuss major issues and recommendations for advancing data sharing, using the outcomes of these workshops as a starting point (see http://www.esa.org/science_resources/datasharing.php for the workshop reports.) Primary topics that will be addressed are needs and resources for the development of data registries and data centers/repositories, and identification and reduction of obstacles to data sharing. Specific issues include: common needs for and desirable features of data registries and repositories for ecology, evolutionary biology, and organismal biology; gaps between existing data centers and needs, including specific issues such as quality assurance procedures needed for contributions to centers, types of data that should be archived, etc.; roles of professional societies, funders of research, and users of research in the development and maintenance of data registries and centers; potential funding mechanisms and models; and identification of barriers to data sharing and recommendations to reduce or eliminate those barriers.