Open Marine Data Standards
There is a growing requirement in the marine assurance industry to analyse, audit, vet and transfer information about marine entities in order to improve operational efficiency, reduce the risk of harmful incidents and keep up with a global business infrastructure that is becoming more digitalised.
This requires a common understanding of what different marine data is supposed to show, and a format in which data can be shared across multiple users without compromising usability and compatibility with each of their business requirements.
Data standards make it easier to create, share, and integrate data by making sure that there is a clear understanding of how the data are represented and that the data you receive are in a clear form that you expected. In short; data standards make it easier for a user by ensuring that all the data they have access to- about the same type of entity- is compatible with the rest (as represented in the diagram below).
Organisations partaking in marine assurance activity must consider events occurring globally- requiring data from sources across the globe. Without a set of standards, this leads to vastly different styles and methods for recording data from each source which cannot be cross-analysed or used in coalition without a high volume of interaction and manipulation from an organisation.
Organisations partaking in marine assurance activity must consider events occurring globally- requiring data from sources across the globe. Without a set of standards, this leads to vastly different styles and methods for recording data from each source which cannot be cross-analysed or used in coalition without a high volume of interaction and manipulation from an organisation.
For marine assurance purposes, data standards are a collection of definitions that state what marine entities fit into each data entity type (for example; types would include vessels, organisations, ports, terminals, berths, and many more), the format that data about each entity type should follow, a breakdown of how the different data types should relate to each other, and a set of data dictionaries containing structured data names describing different entities. Each standard (one for each entity type) should clearly state what data, for each entity type, should always be recorded and provide a framework for producing a greater depth of data that may not always be available to ensure that less readily available details about entities from different data sources are still cross-compatible.
The goal behind this project is to produce, maintain and aid the implementation of a set of marine assurance data standards (Open Marine data standards) to enhance the usability of marine data in all its functions.
This document defines the Open Marine (OMarine) data standards, providing a framework for how common marine entities should be recorded and in what format this data should be shared.