The Value of Open Standards for Exchange of Scientific Information in a Global Environment

Andy Lee
Head, China's Changfeng Open Standards Platform Software Alliance and Director and Chief Research Scientist, ECommerce R&D Center, Institute of Software, at the China Academy of Sciences

Businesses and governments are using improved Internet-based technology to make it easy for citizens and businesses to interact, reduce operational costs, and streamline communications. OASIS is the recognized leader in driving the development and adoption of structured information standards that are being used by governments, academics, industry and citizens. As the scientific community is developing standard vocabularies for describing structured data (taxonomies), there are now emerging protocol standards for automating the information exchange of such structured data. This presentation will provide a context for the issues that relate to increasing the efficiency and accuracy while reducing costs related to exchange of scientific data. Examples of practical benefits of participating in the open standards process and adopting open standards will be provided. OASIS is already the home for the Materials Markup Language effort along with the Emergency Management committee, the Forestry Industry committee and newly developed Conservation Biodiversity committees being lead by the World Conservation Union (IUCN). In addition, a broad range of information will be presented on the latest developments of open standards for content management, localisation, Web services and Service Oriented Architectures as they apply to scientific data exchange efforts.

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, content management and standardization efforts in the public sector and for application-specific markets. Founded in 1993, OASIS has more than 5,500 participants representing over 600 organizations and individual members in 80 countries.

http://www.oasis-open.org