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Common Alerting Protocol (CAP)ServicesEmergency
OASIS
| Version: 1.2
The Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) is a simple but general format for exchanging all-hazard emergency alerts and public warnings over all kinds of networks. CAP allows a consistent warning message to be disseminated simultaneously over many different warning systems, thus increasing warning effectiveness while simplifying the warning task. CAP also facilitates the detection of emerging patterns in local warnings of various kinds, such as might indicate an undetected hazard or hostile act.
Details
  • License: Copyright OASIS
  • About the Publisher: OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) is a nonprofit organization that develops and promotes the use of standards in the a wide range of fields. The non-profit Partnership for Public Warning sponsored the CAP submission to the OASIS standards process
  • Updated by Publisher: 2010-06-01
  • Level of Use: Used by public alerting agencies worldwide, and many countries have developed variations on the standard specific to their needs. The International Telecommunications Union has named CAP as a recommended format for exchanging all-hazard emergency alerts since 2007
  • Open License: No
  • Transferable to other Jurisdictions: CAP was designed to be used internationally, and does not require data specific to any jurisdiction
  • Stakeholder Participation: The technical working group for CAP consists of members of the emergency management and response community
  • Consensus-based Governance: No method for contribution
  • Extensions: Extensibility was one of the main requirements when designing the standard. Countries have created their own variations of CAP, such as CAP Canadian Profile, which addresses Canadian needs such as bilingualism and Canadian geocoding
  • Machine Readable: XML schema
  • Human Readable: Data values are not coded and entries contain plaintext descriptions
  • Requires Real-Time Data: Feeds are headed by an http request timestamp
  • Metadata: Header contains metadata such as alerting.net namespace and Atom syndication format
Added to directory: 2017-06-19
Humanitarian Exchange Language (HXL)ServicesMetadataEmergency
UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
| Version: 1
Simple, hashtag-based standard to improve data sharing during humanitarian crises. Tags are added to a spreadsheet as a second row underneath headers, providing a standardized classification of the column's contents. Maintained by UN OCHA, with participation from a group of agencies, NGOs, and donors.
Details
  • License: GNU General Public License 2.0
  • About the Publisher: The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) coordinates effective and principled humanitarian action after major disasters. OCHA promotes disaster preparedness and prevention and facilitates sustainable solutions
  • Updated by Publisher: 2016-03-18
  • Level of Use: No information
  • Open License: Yes
  • Transferable to other Jurisdictions: Can be applied to any humanitarian spreadsheet data
  • Stakeholder Participation: This standard is published by a working group that includes representatives from the Humanitarian Innovation Fund, IOM, OCHA, Save the Children, UNHCR, UNICEF, USAID, the World Bank, and the World Food Program
  • Consensus-based Governance: No information
  • Extensions: It is impossible for the working group to anticipate the needs of every sector, cluster, and organisation, so there is a well-defined mechanism for creating extension hashtags and attributes.
  • Machine Readable: HXL hashtags and attributes improve automation and interoperability for spreadsheet-style data.
  • Human Readable: Most aid data lives in spreadsheets, not databases or mobile apps.
  • Requires Real-Time Data: HXL supports all types of data, including real-time reporting, information about the past, and forecasts for the future.
  • Metadata: HXL encourages the addition of date, source, and similar metadata to each row, but because it is a retrofit standard (for use on top of existing spreadsheets and templates), it does not *require* that metadata.
Added to directory: 2017-11-27
Multi-Agency Incident Transfer (MAIT)ServicesEmergency
British APCO
| Version: 1.0.0
MAIT was created to solve the problem of exchanging incdents between agency control rooms (emergency dispatch). In line with the UK Government's Open Standards Principles, MAIT is a standard for sharing data between local emergency services in the UK
Details
  • License: Creative Commons Attribution NoDerivatives
  • About the Publisher: As a not-for-profit organisation, British APCO (Association of Public safety Communications Officers) is an independent organisation that provides a forum for professionals in the field of public safety and civil contingencies communications and information technology, to exchange information, ideas and experiences. In partnership with industry it maintains regular liaison with suppliers and other commercial bodies, such as consultants, to monitor developments in technology, new techniques and major programmes.
  • Updated by Publisher: 2016-08-01
  • Level of Use: UK public safety agencies
  • Open License: Yes
  • Transferable to other Jurisdictions: Many of the elements in the schema are specific to the UK. A similar standard could be adopted for another sovereignty
  • Stakeholder Participation: The standard is created by BAPCO, an organization that represents Public Safety Communications Officers, who are the stakeholders in different public safety agencies
  • Consensus-based Governance: Any changes to the standard are made by the BAPCO MAIT Standards group. Conflicts can be submitted to them but all publishing/edits are centralized
  • Extensions: There is a section in the documentation specifying the structure of any additional elements (extensions to the schema)
  • Machine Readable: Data standard specifies XML notation
  • Human Readable: XML schema has relevant element names
  • Requires Real-Time Data: Incident Creation Messages are sent induvidually between agencies and contain a timestamp
  • Metadata: No information
Added to directory: 2017-06-14