Page 39 - GAO-02-327 Electronic Government: Challenges to Effective Adoption of the Extensible Markup Language
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Chapter 2: A Comprehensive Set of Standards
for Implementing XML Is Only Partially in
Place
Additional Standards According to industry experts, a suite of business standards beyond XML’s
technical standards is needed in order to enable organizations that do not
Have Been Proposed have a previously established methodology for data exchange to conduct
for Using XML to business and to tap information resources that are meant to be shared.
Technical standards provide only the generic structure and tools to tag
Conduct Electronic data and documents, transmit them over the Internet, and process them on
Business the other end. Business standards, in contrast, are needed for two reasons.
First, a group of standards is needed to address the overall process of
(1) identifying potential business partners for transactions, (2) exchanging
precise technical information about the nature of proposed transactions so
that the partners can agree to them, and (3) executing agreed-upon
transactions in a formal, legally binding manner. In addition to these
business process standards, a second group of standards is needed to
codify the precise types of data elements that are to be exchanged when a
business transaction is conducted. This need is being answered by the
development of data vocabularies (or languages) designed to meet the
needs of specific businesses and professions.
Business process standards aim to capture electronically all the critical
aspects of arranging and conducting a business transaction. For two
organizations that have not made detailed arrangements in advance,
conducting business transactions over the Internet requires a series of
information exchanges that help define proposed transactions in precise
terms and then reliably confirm that they have taken place. Individual
companies first need to identify each other and share information about
the products and services they offer. They must then agree upon which
business processes and documents are necessary to carry out a proposed
transaction, including determining how the exchange of information will
take place and its contractual terms and conditions. Once all this is
accomplished, they need to reliably exchange business information,
products, and services according to these agreements.
Many of these processes can be captured generically for the activities of
most businesses, although there will also be activities that are unique to
certain kinds of businesses or certain specialized information exchanges.
Examples of specifications that address generic business processes
include the following:
• Electronic business XML (ebXML) provides a method for companies to
exchange business messages and data, conduct transactions, and define
and register business processes.
• RosettaNet provides vocabularies and business process models (e.g.,
inventory management and product review) for the electronics industry.
Page 35 GAO-02-327 Electronic Government
