Genericode Approved as an OASIS Standard
IBM, Publications Office of the European Union, and Others Advance Open Standard for IT-Enabled Code Lists Used in Transportation, Finance, and Other Areas
Boston, MA – 1 February 2023 – Members of OASIS Open, the international open source and standards consortium, have approved Code List Representation (genericode) v1.0 as an OASIS Standard, a status that signifies that highest level of ratification. Developed by the OASIS Code List Representation Technical Committee (TC), the format, known as “genericode,” is a single semantic model for code lists and accompanying XML serialization that is designed to IT-enable and standardize the publication of machine-readable code list information and its interchange between systems.
A code list in its simplest form is a set of strings that represent an item or idea. Standardized code lists include country abbreviations, currency abbreviations, shipping container descriptors, and airport codes, while nonstandardized code lists used between trading partners include financial account types, workflow status indicators, and any set of values representing the semantics of related concepts known between the parties involved in information interchange. Genericode, a standardized code list representation, is a complete description of a code list, including alternate codes, and any other associated data. Genericode also describes how new code lists are derived from existing code lists, so that the derivation is repeatable, automatable and auditable.
“Code lists have been used for many years, often published and disseminated in manners that have not been IT-enabled nor standardized. Genericode is needed to ensure that communities, from business sectors to public authorities worldwide, are able to publish, exchange, and process code lists, a key element for business documents and data spaces interoperability, with a standardized IT-enabled representation,” said Andrea Caccia, Chair of the Code List Representation TC. “Since 2007, with the publication as a Committee Specification, genericode has been widely used. With its publication as an OASIS Standard, it’s expected to gain even more traction.”
“The Publications Office of the European Union publishes European Public Procurement Notices on the TED website. We are pleased to announce the new generation of these notices, eForms, has been restructured using UBL and the associated genericode files,” said Ms. Hilde Hardeman, Director General of the Publications Office of the European Union. “We have made the genericode files that we use in the notices freely available for reuse in EU Vocabularies under the eProcurement Business Collection.”
Participation in the Code List Representation TC is open to all through membership in OASIS. Key stakeholders (those who use code lists in their business exchanges) including standardization bodies, registration and source authorities, implementers of software and services, business sectors and public authorities, and others are invited to join the group.
Media Inquiries: communications@oasis-open.org