EDXL-DE Ratified as OASIS Standard

["Carol Geyer" <carol.geyer@oasis-open.org>]

****Link to this OASIS press release at
http://www.oasis-open.org/news/oasis-news-2006-06-19.php

Emergency Data Exchange Language (EDXL) Distribution Element Ratified as OASIS
Standard 

US Department of Homeland Security, ESI Acquisition, Raining Data, Warning
Systems, and Others Collaborate on Standards to 
Advance Information Sharing for Emergency Preparedness and Response


Boston, MA, USA; 20 June 2006-- The OASIS international standards consortium
today announced that its members have approved the Emergency Data Exchange
Language Distribution Element (EDXL-DE) version 1.0 as an OASIS Standard, a
status that signifies the highest level of ratification. Developed by the OASIS
Emergency Management Technical Committee, EDXL-DE facilitates emergency
information sharing and data exchange across local, regional, tribal, national,
and international organizations in the public and private sectors.

"The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is extremely pleased
that EDXL-DE has been adopted by OASIS as an international standard. EDXL-DE
will facilitate the implementation of a host of standards which will lead to
fully interoperable sharing of information in emergency related applications,"
said Chip Hines, Acting Director of the DHS Office for Interoperability and
Compatibility (OIC) in the Science and Technology Directorate. "The ability of
this standard to transmit any content, from files to technical data exchange
information, provides immediate capability to the emergency response community.
OIC is delighted to have been a part of the process that included the
requirements and participation of the emergency responder stakeholders. I
encourage industry to quickly make this standard available in their products,"
said Hines.

EDXL began in 2004 as a project of the Disaster Management eGov Initiative of
the DHS as a means to enhance inter-agency emergency data communications. DHS
partnered with industry members of the Emergency Interoperability Consortium to
bring the work to OASIS for advancement and standardization.

"EDXL-DE acts as a header to identify to whom and under what circumstances
associated emergency information is to be sent. An example of that emergency
information is the basic warning messages defined by the Common Alerting
Protocol (CAP), but it can also be basic spreadsheets, text documents, video
images, etc.," said Elysa Jones of Warning Systems. Jones serves as chair of
the OASIS Emergency Management Technical Committee, which developed  both
EDXL-DE and CAP. "EDXL-DE is a powerful way to map to the specific
communication plan at any level - local, state, national, and even
international."

"The EDXL-DE OASIS Standard is the product of open collaboration across a
diverse and representative group of local, state and federal emergency response
organizations and industry," noted Patrick Gannon, president and CEO of OASIS.
"The standard delivers reliable, implementable messages, in an incremental
fashion, directly to emergency response workers in the trenches. "It provides
the seamless communication and coordination that's needed to address the unique
needs of information exchange among emergency response organizations."

The OASIS Emergency Management Technical Committee continues to develop other
components of EDXL, which is intended to serve as a suite of emergency data
message types. In addition to message routing instructions such as the DE, EDXL
will address resource queries and requests, situation reports, damage
assessments, and other functionality necessary for cross-disciplinary,
cross-jurisdictional communications. 

All interested parties are encouraged to participate in the OASIS Emergency
Management Technical Committee, which remains open to new contributions. As
with all consortium projects, archives of the Committee's work are accessible
to both members and non-members, and OASIS hosts an open mail list for public
comment on the work.  




Additional Information: 

OASIS Emergency Management Technical Committee
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/emergency/


Cover Pages Technology Report: EDXL 
http://xml.coverpages.org/edxl.html
 

About OASIS:

OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) is
a not-for-profit, international consortium that drives the development,
convergence, and adoption of e-business standards. Members themselves set the
OASIS technical agenda, using a lightweight, open process expressly designed to
promote industry consensus and unite disparate efforts. The consortium produces
open standards for Web services, security, e-business, and standardization
efforts in the public sector and for application-specific markets. Founded in
1993, OASIS has more than 5,000 participants representing over 600
organizations and individual members in 100 countries. Approved OASIS Standards
include AVDL, BCM, CAP, DITA, DocBook, DSML, ebXML CPPA, ebXML Messaging, ebXML
Registry, EML, OpenDocument, SAML, SPML, UBL, UDDI, WSDM, WS-Reliability, WSRF,
WSRP, WS-Security, XACML, XCBF, and XML Catalogs. http://www.oasis-open.org


Press contact:

Carol Geyer
Director of Communications, OASIS
carol.geyer@oasis-open.org
+1.978.667.5115 x209