Public-Private Standards Development Collaboration 

Case Study: OASIS 

Executive Summary 

In November 2000, the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) report on “Effective 

Disaster Warnings” (PDF) acknowledged that, while the technology existed to add a warning-receiving 

capability feature to radios, television, phones, etc., that could provide effective warnings in the event 

of a disaster, what did not exist at the time was “a public/private partnership that can work out the 

details to deliver such disaster warnings effectively.” In view of that, it therefore recommended that “a 

standard method should be developed to collect and relay instantaneously and automatically all types 

of hazard warnings and reports locally, regionally and nationally for input into a wide variety of 

dissemination systems.” 

Results: 

In 2001, an international, independent group of over 120 emergency managers began specifying and 

prototyping the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) data structure based on the recommendations of the 

NSTC report. The project was embraced by the non-profit Partnership for Public Warning and a 

number of international warning system vendors. 

In February 2003, a draft CAP specification was submitted to the Organization for the Advancement of 

Structured Information Systems (OASIS) through the OASIS Emergency Management Technical 

Committee. Version 1 of CAP became an official OASIS standard in early 2004. 

CAP is used as the foundation technology for the proposed "Integrated Public Alert and Warning 

System," (IPAWS), an all-hazard, all-media national warning architecture being developed by DHS, the 

National Weather Service and the FCC. 

In Canada, a working group composed of public alerting practitioners and government agencies has 

developed a CAP Canadian Profile (CAP-CP) based on CAP but specialized to address the needs of 

Canadian public alerting stakeholders, such as bilingualism, “geo-coding” for Canada, managed lists of 

locations and events, etc. The Canadian government has adopted CAP-CP for its National Public 

Alerting System (NPAS) project. The CAP-CP working group, along with stakeholders and projects 

such as the Canadian Association for Public Alerting and Notification (CAPAN), are now working with 

and refining CAP-CP for national application in Canada. 

CAP has been implemented for a small-scale, grassroots hazard information system in Sri Lanka 

following the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. This implementation was part of the "HazInfo Project"

funded by Canada's International Development Research Centre. 

Today, CAP is part of the Emergency Data Exchange Language (EDXL) suite of standards. Currently, 

EDXL includes the following specifications, all developed at the OASIS Emergency Management 

Technical Committee: 

y EDXL Common Alerting Protocol (EDXL-CAP) 
2 

y EDXL Distribution Element (EDXL-DE) 

y EDXL Hospital AVailability Exchange (EDXL-HAVE) 

y EDXL Resource Message (EDXL-RM) 

y EDXL Reference Information Model (EDXL-RIM) 

y EDXL Situation Reporting (EDXL-SitRep) 

The Emergency Management TC membership has members from the Canadian Association for Public 

Alerting and Notification (CAPAN), Sandia National Laboratories, US Department of Defense (DoD), 

US Department of Homeland Security and a number of private organizations and individuals (see its 

roster). 

Background 

After the ratification of CAP as an OASIS Standard in May 2004, the US Department of Homeland 

Security (DHS) and the Emergency Interoperability Consortium (EIC) signed a Memorandum of 

Agreement in January 2005 for the collaborative design and development of a suite of specifications 

under the name “Emergency Data Exchange Language.” 

The EDXL initiative is a national effort including a diverse and representative group of local, state and 

federal emergency response organizations and professionals, following a multi-step process. A group of 

practitioners from leading emergency response organizations prioritize specific message sets and define 

base requirements. 

On the governmental side, DHS coordinates the development of high-level requirements through the 

Disaster Management eGov Initiative. Prototyping and proof-of-concept testing falls under the aegis of 

EIC. On the private side, OASIS is in charge of producing format specifications based on the above 

through the Emergency Management Technical Committee. 

CAP has been adopted as a payload within EDXL messages. 

Based on experience with CAP 1.0, the OASIS Emergency Management Technical Committee adopted 

an updated CAP 1.1 specification in October 2005 (version 1.2 is scheduled to be submitted for 

approval in mid-2010). At a meeting in Geneva in October 2006, the CAP 1.1 specification was taken 

under consideration by the International Telecommunications Union for adoption, and ITU-T then 

adopted it as Recommendation X.1303. 

CAP implementations have been demonstrated by government agencies including: the DHS; the 

National Weather Service; the US Geological Survey; the California Office of Emergency Services; the 

Virginia Department of Transportation and others. 

During early 2005, the DHS, in partnership with the Association of Public Television Stations, 

demonstrated CAP-based "digital EAS" broadcasts over public television digital TV transmitters and 

satellite links in the Washington, D.C. area and nationwide. 

For more information, please contact the Information Technology Industry Council at 202.626.5752