New JHS recommendation to promote interoperability in IT systems in public administration
The Advisory Committee on Information Management in Public Administration (JUHTA) has issued a JHS public administration recommendation on XML schemas in public administration. The recommendation aims to promote uniform use of XML schemas in public administration and interoperability in IT systems. It should be adhered to especially when developing interface solutions for information exchange between different organisations.
The JHS recommendation gives guidelines on how to produce and manage XML schemas and is intended for IT system designers in public administration and for project managers and experts in system development. XML schemas are based on technology standardized by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and describe the structure of XML documents. Structured documents and data messages are examples of XML documents. XML schemas help IT systems to better understand the information content of documents and messages.
The main purpose of the recommendation is to bring conformity to the way in which XML structures are formatted and named. To make IT systems more interoperable, a catalogue for common core types and core elements in public administration will be published later, describing common data, such as personal details, to all public authorities.Organizations should use the JHS recommendation when designing their XML schemas. This is an important step towards semantic interoperability between organizations.
The recommendation builds on international standards where applicable, and on acknowledged reference recommendations. It was not advisable to use international standards as they stand. Instead, the best possible practices applicable to Finland's public administration were selected, while also bearing in mind compatibility with international standards. The XML schemas referred to in the recommendation are based on W3C recommendations. The naming guidelines draw on international standard ISO 11179-5 (Information technology - Specification for standardization and registration of data elements and associated metadata - Part 5: Naming and identification principles).
The recommendation can be accessed in Finnish at: www.jhs-suositukset.fi/suomi/jhs170
Inquiries:
Mr Ville-Veikko Ahonen, General Secretary, tel. 358 9 160 33227, Ministry of Finance, Mr Mikael af Hällström, Finnish Tax Administration, tel. 358 40 827 1301 and Mr Tommi Karttaavi, Senior Advisor, Association of Finnish Local and Regional Authorities, tel. 358 50 5633935.