Open Standards

This is a repository for the Forum Fisheries Agencies Open Standards Initiative. The aim of the initiative is to develop the standards required to simplify the development of fisheries management information systems among our membership.

You can find all our Data, Process and Checklist standards here:

• Entity Data Standard: This standard defines the data fields required to capture information about entities. Entities are things like individuals, organizations, vessels etc. They can be legal entities like individuals, companies etc. or non-legal entities like vessels

• Condition Data Standard: This standard defines the data fields required to capture information about a condition. Conditions can be applied to authorizations. Authorizations are things like licenses, agreements, permits etc.

• Authorization Data Standard: This standard defines the data fields required to capture information about an authorization. Authorizations are things like licenses, agreements, permits etc.

• Vessel Data Standard: This standard defines only the unique identifiers needed to cross check information against various vessel registries online.

Why Open Standards?

Scale, Complexity and Cost: Fisheries systems within the FFA membership have reached a tipping point in size and scale where we need to take a more structured approach to managing cost and complexity involved in the development and maintenance of these systems. If this is not addressed and properly managed, this complexity will only get worse as:

More Features are added to systems,

More Systems are introduced into the region

This will lead to:

Fragility: Increased fragility both within systems and between systems increasing the risks of system failures and data loss.

Costs: an increased drain on resources (time, money and expertise).

So… Open Standards?

Open standards are one way of addressing this complexity issue via the creation of stable, predictable and reusable components that will provide the core building blocks needed to:

1. Build simpler and more robust systems

2. Improve the ability to exchange data between different systems

3. Allow us to build systems at scale without incurring the additional cost

What are these reusable components?

The reusable components for a system are defined as

1. Data: The data that needs to be captured

2. Processes: The process that this data goes through

3. Checklists: The checks and balances that need to be performed as this data flows through the system