About

Acknowledgements

The Open Data Standards Directory is a project of the Bloomberg Center for Government Excellence (GovEx) at Johns Hopkins University, in partnership with Geothink at McGill University and members of the open data community.

It grew out of foundational research into open data standards and the contributions of many people across the open-government and civic-technology communities.

Development

The directory is an evolving, community-maintained resource. Its data now lives as open YAML files in the project's Git repository, and the site is a static build — anyone can propose additions or corrections.

The source code and data are on GitHub. To suggest a new standard or an update, see the contribute page.

Built with open tools and icons: typefaces from Google Fonts (PT Sans Narrow, Lato), category artwork from the Noun Project, and UI glyphs derived from the Feather icon set.

On the proliferation of standards

xkcd comic #927 'Standards': faced with 14 competing standards, someone proposes a single universal standard to replace them all — resulting in 15 competing standards. — “Standards” by Randall Munroe — xkcd #927, used under CC BY-NC 2.5.

The comic captures the perennial hazard: faced with too many competing standards, someone sets out to unify them all — and merely adds one more to the pile. This directory takes the opposite tack: it helps you find and evaluate the standards that already exist, rather than inventing another.