Progress update on the OpenActive standards work
The OpenActive W3C community group was established to define data standards for physical activity opportunity data to work for everyone across the sector. The group’s Co-chair, Leigh Dodds, discusses its latest progressions.
To deliver on our mission to get more people active, we need to create standard ways to publish open data on what, where and when opportunities to be physically active (known as opportunity data) are happening across the country. Without a common way to describe events, developers will struggle to combine data from multiple sources to help users discover the opportunities that are available to them.
At the end of last year we launched the OpenActive W3C community group to be the forum for our data standards activity. We chose to co-ordinate this activity within the W3C as an open forum for communities to come together and work on standards that are relevant to the sector.
By working in the open, and allowing anyone to contribute, we can ensure the standards we create support everyone in the sector.
What is the group working on?
The initial scope of the standards work is to:
- Specify how to describe physical activity opportunities, by agreeing on a data model that will describe physical activities, venues and events. For example, a standard way to describe that a Judo class takes place at a local leisure centre every week
- Specify how to publish “activity lists” that describe the variety of ways in which people can be physically active. For example that Judo and Karate are both types of Martial Arts
- Define how to publish data for others to reuse, e.g. via open APIs, standard data formats and markup embedded in web pages
Our initial focus lays the foundation for future work — for example creating a standard to support activity booking. We also plan to produce tools that will support both publishers and consumers of physical activity opportunity data.
What has the group achieved so far?
Through mailing list discussions and regular conference calls, the group has now published the first public draft specification that defines a standard data model for opportunity data.
We have used this specification to develop a common understanding of the most important information to share about physical activity opportunities.
This shared vision has enabled us to define a data model that will support openly publishing opportunity data in a variety of ways. This includes through standard open APIs, markup embedded in web pages or as data downloads.
By considering how to align our work with standards from other communities, and how the model can evolve in future, we aim to ensure that physical activity opportunity data can be reused by the widest possible audience.
How can I get involved?
We have now reached the point where the draft specification would benefit from wider review and testing.
If you’ve already opened your data as part of OpenActive, then we’re particularly keen to get your feedback. To build consistency across the sector we’ll be asking new publishers to begin using the specification and will be supporting existing publishers in migrating to use it.
We’re also keen to hear from developers interested in building applications using this data, so we can ensure that it meets your needs.
We are particularly interested in gaining feedback on these questions:
- How well does the draft data model support the types of data your organisation will be publishing, or the types of discovery tools you’d like to build with opportunity data?
- Are there important data elements, e.g. ways of describing events or places, that are missing from the specification?
- What kind of support would be useful in helping you implement and use the specification?
We are interested in both general comments and questions, as well as more detailed technical feedback.
If you do have any comments then please send them to the OpenActive W3C community group mailing list. Or if you’d prefer, then you can add to or comment on any of the issues in our issue tracker.
We are also inviting people to join the group to participate in the ongoing standardisation work. The standard will be stronger for having your input.
