UK "Zanzibar" B2G eProcurement and UBL tieing the knot

The UK government has launched the enhanced "Zanzibar" eProcurement system.

The underlying business transactions and formats in XML are being aligned with the UBL 2.0 work within OASIS that is developed using the ebXML CCTS approach.

This is an import milestone on the road toward international procurement system standards alignment.

The OGCbuying.solutions (http://www.ogcbuyingsolutions.gov.uk/) proposed standard includes 14 XML business documents which are being considered by OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) for incorporation in UBL 2.0 and as such is expected to become a new standard for eCommerce over the Internet.

More on the Zanzibar system is available from the press release - click here

ISO Focus Article - "ebXML - When Innovation Really Matters"

The February edition of the ISO Focus magazine includes an article "ebXML - When Innovation Really Matters" by Alan Kotok. The article is wide ranging and discusses many aspects of the continuing evolving ebXML work. For information on the issue, see the ISO Focus web site on ordering print copies.

Exploiting ebXML registry semantic constructs for handling archetype metadata in healthcare informatics

The medical community is working hard at leveraging knowledgement management (KM) to improve medical research and science.

Allied to this is the need to have better semantic understanding and alignment.

A recent paper published on semantic representations in registry shows how to work toward alignment of domain terms across a community of interest (CoI). The use of XML and OWL syntax to enable storage mechanisms inside the ebXML registry system is particularly insightful.

Centrica and enerbility successfully verifying eCM interoperability

The adoption of ebXML within the electrical power distribution sector is moving forward.

Successful bilateral tests between enerbility software gmbh, Austria, and Centria PLC, UK were completed, with the goal to show the exchange and matching of XML based trade confirmations between different vendor implementations.

XML based electronic confirmations as a substitute for fax-based confirmations are the next step on the way to full electronic processes in the energy trading business. The necessary standards to accomplish this are developed in cooperative effort supported by the most important energy companies under the umbrella of the European Federation of Energy Traders (http://www.efet.org).

More information on this from the enerbility announcement.