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Challenge Owners
Challenge owners are appointed by the Office of the Chief Technology Officer. They lead the work to develop proposals, carry out assessments and research, and draft standards profiles in response to challenges on the Standards Hub.
Resources will be collected together here to help challenge owners throughout each phase whilst they work towards selecting open standards for government IT.
A challenge owner must assess each of the standards associated with a proposal.
Before doing that, the challenge owner has to gain approval from the Open Standards Board on the criteria for assessing the standards within their proposals. This should be based on the list of core assessment questions.
Challenge owners have the option to suggest to the Board that some of the questions are not applicable for the proposal(s) associated with their challenge. They can also suggest adding other questions. The questions for each of the standards in all of the proposals for a particular challenge must be identical so that a fair comparison can be made.
Challenge owners also have to gain approval from the Open Standards Board if they propose that any questions should be ‘knock-out’ questions for the standards that feature in their proposals. A ‘no’ response to a question designated as a knock-out question means that the standard is not suitable for use in that context so no further assessment of the standard will be carried out.
The assessment criteria (the assessment questions agreed by the Open Standards Board) should be published on the Standards Hub with the proposals.
The assessment questions are completed in an online form but the [core assessment questions]((#core-assessment-questions) are provided here for reference. The challenge owner answers yes, no or not applicable and provides justification for the answer. An example of a completed assessment is available.
Some questions ask about the organisation that created the standard may be relevant to several challenge owners. The Office of the Chief Technology Officer collects some of this information to help challenge owners. You will therefore find that some proposed answers for the standards organisation-related questions are published on the Hub. These should be treated as draft answers and you should check that the information is correct for the particular standards you are referring to.
These are the core questions that are considered by a challenge owner when assessing standards in proposals. The questions are completed in an online form but are provided here for reference.
Does the formal specification address and facilitate interoperability between public administrations?
Does the formal specification address and facilitate the development of information or IT systems in government?
Are the functional and non-functional requirements for the use and implementation of the formal specification appropriately detailed?
Is the formal specification applicable and extensible for implementations in different domains?
Is the formal specification largely independent from products of single providers (either open source or proprietary)?
Is the formal specification largely independent from specific platforms?
Has the standard been written such that its realisation can be/is demonstrated using more than one technology (e.g. XML and JSON)?
Has the formal specification been sufficiently developed and in existence for a period to overcome most of its initial problems?
Are there existing or planned mechanisms to assess conformity of the implementations of the formal specification (e.g. conformity tests, certifications, plugfests etc)?
Has the formal specification sufficient detail, consistency and completeness for the use and development of products?
Does the formal specification provide available implementation guidelines and documentation for the implementation of products?
Does the formal specification provide a reference (or open source) implementation?
Does the formal specification address backward compatibility with previous versions?
Have the underlying technologies for implementing the formal specification been proven, stable and clearly defined?
Is information on the terms and policies for the establishment and operation of the standardisation organisation publicly available?
Is participation in the creation process of the formal specification open to all relevant stakeholders (e.g. organisations, companies or individuals)?
Is information on the standardisation process publicly available?
Information on the decision making process for approving formal specifications is publicly available?
Are the formal specifications approved in a decision making process which aims at reaching consensus?
Are the formal specifications reviewed using a formal review process with all relevant external stakeholders (e.g. public consultation)?
All relevant stakeholders can formally appeal or raise objections to the development and approval of formal specifications?
Relevant documentation of the development and approval process of formal specifications is publicly available (e.g. preliminary results, committee meeting notes)?
Is the documentation of the formal specification publicly available for implementation and use at zero or low cost?
Is the documentation of the IPR for formal specifications publicly available (is there a clear and complete set of licence terms)?
Is the formal specification licensed on a royalty-free basis?
Has the formal specification been used for different implementations by different vendors/suppliers?
Has the formal specification been used in different industries, business sectors or functions?
Has interoperability been demonstrated across different implementations by different vendors/suppliers?
Do the products that implement the formal specification have a significant market share of adoption?
Do the products that implement the formal specification target a broad spectrum of end-uses?
Has the formal specification a strong support from different interest groups?
Is there evidence that the adoption of the formal specification supports improving efficiency and effectiveness of organisational process?
Is there evidence that the adoption of the formal specification makes it easier to migrate between different solutions from different providers?
Is there evidence that the adoption of the formal specification positively impacts the environment?
Is there evidence that the adoption of the formal specification positively impacts financial costs?
Is there evidence that the adoption of the formal specification positively impacts security?
Is there evidence that the adoption of the formal specification can be implemented alongside enterprise security technologies?
Is there evidence that the adoption of the formal specification positively impacts privacy?
Is the formal specification largely compatible with related (not alternative) formal specifications in the same area of application?
Is there evidence that the adoption of the formal specification positively impacts the accessibility and inclusion?
Does the formal specification have a defined maintenance organisation?
Does the maintenance organisation for the formal specification have sufficient finances and resources to be sure of freedom from short- to medium-term threats?
Does the maintenance organisation have a public statement on intention to transfer responsibility for maintenance of the formal specification if the organisation were no longer able to continue?
Does the formal specification have a defined maintenance and support process?
Does the formal specification have a defined policy for version management?
Is this an existing European standard or an identified technical specification in Europe? (Note: CEN, CENELEC and ETSI are the European standards bodies. Technical specifications provided by organisations other than CEN, CENELEC or ETSI can be under consideration to become a European standard or an identified technical specification in Europe for example through the Multi Stakeholder Platform.)
Does this specification or standard cover an area different from those already identified or currently under consideration as an identified European standard or specification?
When proposals have been investigated and the standards within them have been assessed by the challenge owner, a standards panel will work with the challenge owner to evaluate the proposal.
The standards panel submits the evaluation to the Open Standards Board along with a draft standards profile, which the challenge owner has prepared.
Both the evaluation and the draft standards profile are published on the Standards Hub.
The standards profile and the evaluation questions are completed in online forms rather than in a spreadsheet or document. The evaluation questions are provided here for reference so that challenge owners know what information will be required during the evaluation.
- What needs does the standards profile meet?
- Which organisations or functional areas should refer to this standards profile?
- What is the standards panel’s recommendation to the Open Standards Board? - Describe which stakeholder groups and outcomes the standard profile meets and how.
- Why does the panel consider this is the most effective course of action? - Describe the scope.
- Summary of the assessment - What are the pros and cons relating to applicability, maturity, openness, intellectual property rights, market support, potential and coherence discovered during the assessment?
- Alternatives considered - What other proposals and standards were considered and why are these not being recommended?
- What effect would implementation of this standards profile have on service delivery?
- How does this approach deal with any backwards compatibility issues?
- What might be on the horizon (e.g. are there any threats relating to this approach or the associated standards)?
- What are the benefits or opportunities relating to this approach or the associated standards (economic, social and environmental)?
- When will implementation begin and when is it likely that it will be completed?
- Are there any non-technical barriers that remain which will need to be addressed before successful implementation could be achieved (e.g. legal, organisational)
- What trials have been undertaken? - Describe any reference implementations that have been built or tested, and pilot projects or any plugfests etc.
- The people involved in the development of the proposal and the assessment of the standards.
- Members of the standards panel involved in the evaluation of this standards profile.
- What date should this standards profile be reviewed? - Taking into account any anticipated changes in technology or standards.
- Was it necessary to notify the European Commission under Directive 2015/1535/EU (replaced Directive 98/34/EC in 7 October 2015)? If so, what stage has been reached; is the outcome known?