Since the beginning of the IODP program a great effort has been done to implement an information system benefitting all involved partners in IODP (USIO, CDEX; ECORD).The Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) is developing a web based information service (Scientific Earth Drilling Information Service, SEDIS) - to facilitate access to all data and information related to scientific ocean drilling, regardless of origin or location of data. SEDIS will be designed to integrate distributed scientific drilling data via metadata.The three main data contributors to SEDIS currently are the IODP implementing organizations (IOs) from the United States (USIO), Japan (CDEX) and Europe with Canada (ESO). Each IO uses its own drilling platform and data management system. Currently SEDIS integrates the data search of the IO databases by harvesting distributed metadata without the necessity to centralize the data storage. SEDIS will be expanded at a later stage to include other scientific drilling data from continental or lake drilling. SEDIS will also include a publication search engine and advanced data search, visualization and mapping tools.SEDIS will be developed in three phases:Phase I [finished]: Metadata portal for data discovery and harvesting. Metadata will be provided by the IOs (http://sedis.iodp.org)Phase II [in progress]: Search database for publications, reports, minutes, citations and possibly post expedition researchPhase III: Advanced data search, visualization and mapping toolsThe system uses international standards for metadata/data exchange and transfer by implementing open source components.