CAPARDUS Deliverable 1.2 Report on Arctic standards, protocols and framework model Version 1.0 (revised)

Standards can act as common language and practices among actors when aiming to share and use observing systems, data, ensure safety, and many other activities in the Arctic. Equipment manufacturers, observing programs, data producers, citizens, and governments all benefit from the creation of open standards. It is vital that the standards development process ensures that all interested parties work together in the context of openness and transparency. In particular, as data becomes the world’s most valuable resource, it becomes ever more important that the digital ecosystem for data be designed and managed in a way that ensures sufficient user access, transparency, accountability, and quality assurance.

 This report presents a review of a subset of Arctic domains that could benefit from some level of standardization. Standards are typically technical documents, while standardization is a human process that takes place in an ecosystem of interrelated and interdependent human actors, institutions, norms, and practices (including standards), technologies, information objects, and relationships.  To enhance standards adoption, it is equally important to understand the ecosystem and its subsystems (general kinds of things, linkages and flows in the system) and the details of its interacting parts (e.g. the specific organizations, technologies, people and their needs).  To manage this complex task, the report introduces a relatively simple framework, supported by emerging advanced information structures (linked open data represented using the Resource Description Framework, ontologies) that help to document and understand the ecosystem to support standards development, maintenance, and implementation.