Part of the EDXL Suite of Data Standards

The primary purpose of the Distribution Element is to facilitate the routing of any properly formatted XML emergency message to recipients. The Distribution Element may be thought of as a "container". It provides the information to route "payload" message sets (such as Alerts or Resource Messages), by including key routing information such as agency type, geography, incident type, and sender/recipient ID’s.

THE NEED

More and more organizations identified the need to exchange data messages and began efforts to define data standards.  It soon became apparent that each effort was unique and lacked a common set of data elements that could be used by routing systems to distribute the message no matter what the content was. So that Common Alerting Protocol (CAP), Vehicular Emergency Data Sets (VEDS), and other XML-based standards could be properly routed, a group of practitioners determined that there needed to be a set of common data elements that could be used as an “envelope” for any XML data standard. These elements would be used by routing and messaging systems to accurately distribute the message to the appropriate agencies.

COMCARE'S APPROACH

The Disaster Management eGov Initiative of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) determined in 2004 to launch a project to develop interagency emergency data communications standards. It called together a group of national emergency response practitioner leaders and sought their guidance on requirements for such standards. In June, 2004 the first such meeting, facilitated by COMCARE, identified the need for a common distribution element for all emergency messages. Subsequent meetings of a Standards Working Group developed detailed requirements and a draft specification for such a distribution element (DE).

During the same period the DM Initiative was forming a partnership with industry members of the Emergency Interoperability Consortium (EIC), of which COMCARE is a member,  to cooperate in the development of emergency standards. EIC had been a leading sponsor of the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP). Both organizations desired to develop an expanded family of data formats for exchanging operational information beyond warning.

EIC members participated in the development of the DE, and in the broader design of a process for the development of additional standards. This was named Emergency Data Exchange Language (EDXL). The draft DE specification was trialed by a number of EIC members starting with a National Demonstration coordinated by COMCARE in October, 2004. In November, 2004, EIC formally submitted the draft to the OASIS Emergency Management Technical Committee for standardization.

FROM VISION TO REALITY

In April 2006, OASIS approved the DE as an official international emergency data standard. The Distribution Element continues to be demonstrated during interoperability field tests.

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