Standards and systems for transient response

Across a variety of different wavelength regimes, new facilities are being planned or are under development which will discover transients at an unprecedented, and potentially overwhelming, rate. An important challenge will be to address this deluge of data. How can we classify the detections, decide what is important, trigger appropriate follow-up observations—and do so quickly, and, where possible, with minimal human intervention? Here we discuss some of the approaches the LOFAR Transients Key Science Project has been investigating to these issues, with an emphasis on the importance of adopting common standards