HI Fraser,
 
Think of the schema as a simple expression of the 
common data, not the be all/end all data model itself.  

 
Your collaboration work should first focus on building 
an agreed upon data model that can be customised to meet individual 
requirements. The  ISO 15000-5 specification - Core Components - is 
focused exactly that - a methodology for creating a common conceptual data model 
for both behind and across organizational boundaries that can be customized 
using context to create physical/logical models.  A number of standards 
organizations (such as UN/CEFACT, OASIS UBL, OAGi, CIDX) , governments 
(such as projects underway in Australia, Denmark, US), and private sector 
companies (SAP, Oracle) are using CCTS, or beginning to use CCTS as the 
basis for their data models.  They recognize that interoperability is not 
just a once and done project, but requires alignment with a consensus 
standard.  Once the agreed upon data models are inplace, the XML 
serialization is a trivial process. A number of Schema NDRs are available 
for use (such as those from UN/CEFACT or OASIS UBL).
 
You might also consider using UN/CEFACT as the parent 
organization for creating your working group.  They currently have 19 
diverse working groups developing standards in areas such as supply chain, 
environment, transportation, construction, egovernment, hospitality industry, 
and so on.
 
Kind Regards,  
 <!---->
Mark 
Mark Crawford 
SAP Standards Architect 
Office: 703 670-0920 

Mobile: 703 
485-5232
---------------------------------------------------------- 

Chair UN/CEFACT Applied 
Technologies Group 
Lead, UN/CEFACT XML NDR Standard
Editor, UN/CEFACT Core 
Components 
 


  
  
  From: Fraser Hore 
  [mailto:fraserhore@h...] 
Sent: Saturday, April 21, 2007 5:37 
  PM
To: xml-dev@l...
Subject: [xml-dev] How to 
  develop a common schema for data exchange


  
  
  I'm 
  working with humanitarian organizations that do a lot of data collection in 
  the field.  There is a tremendous amount of redundancy of data collection 
  (surveys etc.) across different organizations and units because they don't 
  have common data standards.  I would like to help them create a shared 
  schema for common data such as nutrition and health data.  I would be 
  grateful if anyone has any advice or can direct me to resources that describe 
  how to go about this.  Intuitively I imagine that there is a process 
  whereby a user group is formed to develop an agreed set of schema definitions 
  for the data.  Some advice on how to design these schema definitions 
  would be great.  <o:p></o:p>
  <o:p> </o:p>
  Thanks,<o:p></o:p>
  <o:p> </o:p>
  Fraser<o:p></o:p>
  <o:p> </o:p>