GSA's Government Without Boundaries Project (GwoB) Publishes Draft XML Schemas

March 1, 2002 - A Parks and Recreation Subcommittee of the 'Government Without Boundaries' (GwoB) project has published draft XML schemas with a corresponding taxonomy and data dictionary for park and recreation services. The General Services Administration's GwoB project is dedicated to the creation of a "virtual pool of government information and services available from all levels of government and accessible by all constituents to facilitate interoperability between parks and recreation sites and web enabled systems. The GWoB website provides general GWoB project information with hotlinks to each state participants' GWoB demonstration project. GSA will also post subcommittee products such as draft XML schemas for government and industry comment; it is to host information regarding other intergovernmental initiatives such as the Business Registry and Simplified Tax and Wage Reporting System (STAWRS)."

The draft taxonomy for parks and recreation data defines the data entities and related attributes of interest; entities include Agency, ContactSponsor, Event, Facility, and Location. The corresponding XML schemas are available online in an interactive context that supports public review and annotation; the element specifications map to enumerated attributes for the data entities, as in the case of Event: EventName, EventDescription, StartDate, EndDate, StartTime, EndTime, AgeGroup, EventURL, EventEmail, RegistrationNeeded, EventADAAccess, EventFeeDescription, EventComments. These facilities (in pilot phase) support the ideals of a seamless GwoB initiative which means "constituents can obtain info and services across all levels of government for their purposes, and governments can identify and deliver integrated information and services to their constituents."

Draft taxonomy: a draft taxonomy for parks and recreation data "defines the data entities and related attributes currently under consideration by the Government Without Boundaries (GwoB) Parks and Recreation Subcommittee. This taxonomy will grow as other interoperable Parks and Recreation Applications are identified. Application Schemas will be required for each effort. Data entities used in each of those application schemas should be submitted for inclusion in this taxonomy... The [draft] data entities include: Agency [the institution responsible for submitting and maintaining data related to Parks within a given jurisdiction], ContactSponsor [nn orgranization which sponsors a Park event or activity], Event [a noteworthy happening, social occasion or activity being held at a Park], Facility [a physical facility located within a Park], Location [an area maintained as a public property where facilities and grounds are made available to the community for a variety of recreational activities and events (i.e., a park]." The data entities have enumerated attributes, as in the case of Event: EventName, EventDescription, StartDate, EndDate, StartTime, EndTime, AgeGroup, EventURL, EventEmail, RegistrationNeeded, EventADAAccess, EventFeeDescription, EventComments.

"The Park Calendar of Events Application Schema definition is used by jurisdictions to provide data to a master Calendar of Events application hosted by the State of New Jersey. Each participating jurisdiction uniquely maps its existing data to that schema definition and provides a link to the XML schema containing that data in the Registry of Web Services. That same schema definition is then used by the jurisdiction hosting the application (New Jersey) to retrieve local jurisdiction data for inclusion into its application..."

The Application Repository for Parks and Recreation "lists all of the interoperable applications which have been registered with the GwoB Parks and Recreation Sub-committee. Applications wishing to provide for interoperability within the GwoB Parks and Recreation Information Domain should create Application Schemas drawing from the data entities defined in the Parks and Recreation Taxonomy."

Cycle I products from the Parks And Recreation Subcommittee pilot effort included interoperability guidelines created by integrating the DOI's Recreation.gov, NJ, Virginia and Fairfax County applications and data. Creation of guidelines for exchanging data began with the identification of common data elements (information glossary), registry of services, and the subsequent development of XML schema to exchange that data. These [specifications] allow for maximum freedom of participation at various levels of technical capabilities,as the freedom to participate without loss of control of existing data, applications or services is critical. [adapted from the comments of Lynn Hadden in meeting minutes]

Contact

Lynn Hadden
lynn.hadden@co.fairfax.va.us