Page 41 - GAO-02-327 Electronic Government: Challenges to Effective Adoption of the Extensible Markup Language

Chapter 2: A Comprehensive Set of Standards
ebXML
for Implementing XML Is Only Partially in
Place
however, XML’s use could be limited to carefully prearranged data
exchanges with well-established business partners.
However, business standards are generally less well-developed and agreed
upon than XML’s core technical standards. Unlike XML technical
standards, all of which are established and maintained by the W3C,
business standards are developed by a variety of public and private sector
organizations, including industry consortia, and are not always universally
supported. For example, a number of different approaches to addressing
the process of conducting business transactions have been proposed.
Currently, at least three of them are vying for support and offer
functionality that is in part overlapping and incompatible. These
approaches include the following:
UN/CEFACT and OASIS have approved a modular suite of ebXML
specifications that enables the conduct of business over the Internet. 2
EbXML’s goal is to allow any enterprise—of any size or in any industry—
to conduct business electronically with any other entity anywhere in the
world. Launched in November 1999, the ebXML project finished its initial
development phase in May 2001. At that time, it established a set of design
rules for data dictionaries as well as a number of significant reference
documents, including a technical architecture, business process
specification schema, registry information model, registry services
specification, requirements specification, message service standard, and
collaboration-protocol profile and agreement. Figure 6 shows a
representative ebXML transaction involving two organizations that locate
each other through an ebXML registry and then negotiate and carry out the
transaction based on ebXML specifications.
2
UN/CEFACT is the United Nations’ Center for the Facilitation of Procedures and
Practices for Administration, Commerce, and Transport. OASIS is the Organization for the
Advancement of Structured Information Standards. OASIS is an international nonprofit
consortium that promotes open, collaborative development of interoperability
specifications to advance electronic business.
Page 37 GAO-02-327 Electronic Government