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This post is Part 1 of 5 in a series of reports on the recent annual conference of the International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM) held November 1-4 in San Antonio, Texas.
In the alerts and warning arena, FEMA was there demonstrating the capabilities of its Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) Open Platform for Emergency Networks (OPEN). IPAWS-OPEN is based on the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP), which has been adopted as an international standard by the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS). OASIS also had a large display at the IAEM show, and was conducting alerting interoperability demonstrations among the many OASIS vendors’ equipment as well as sending those alerts via the IPAWS-OPEN infrastructure to the Emergency Alert System (EAS) equipment in the FEMA display nearby. Those alerts were also available to other IPAWS-OPEN-compatible vendors on the exhibit floor and the alerts were going out on a Twitter feed as well. FEMA’s Assistant Administrator of the National Continuity Programs (NCP) Directorate, Damon Penn, and FEMA’s Deputy Director of the IPAWS Program Management Office, Wade Witmer, conducted a one hour session on IPAWS on November 1. Session highlights included:
- In 2011, FEMA plans to begin educating and training state and local officials to use IPAWS.
- FEMA is working with Internet Service Providers, such as Microsoft and Google, to deliver IPAWS alerts.
- CMAS tests are underway to deliver IPAWS alerts to cell phones; the tests are going well and the nationwide launch may come sooner than planned.
OASIS also presented and focused on Emergency Data Exchange Language (EDXL) Standards, including CAP and others. The takeaway seemed to be that if an emergency manager buys alert and warning software or systems, he or she needs to be certain it is CAP-compliant for future-proof interoperability with other alert origination, dissemination and reception systems.
Future reports in this series will detail the social media and public/private partnership discussions conducted at the IAEM Conference.
In order for alert and warning messages to be interoperable among the various stakeholders, we all need to be talking the same “language”. One organization promoting this standardization in emergency alerting is OASIS, the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards. OASIS is developing a family of standards it calls the Emergency Data eXchange Language, or EDXL. One EDXL standard that AWARE readers may be familiar with is CAP, the Common Alerting Protocol. Other EDXL standards deal with hospital availability, resource messaging, situation reporting (sit-reps), and the distribution and security of emergency messages.
OASIS recently presented a webinar called EDXL101, which explains the features of the various EDXL standards. This webinar has been archived and is now available for viewing. During the live presentation, over 100 people logged in to watch it. Anyone with an interest in alerts and warnings will find this webinar valuable. It is especially helpful for developers looking to incorporate these protocols in an alert and warning product line. Implementers and originators of emergency alerts will also get a good overview of the protocols available and how they might be used. Interoperability is an important priority in the alerts and warnings field, and EDXL101 is an excellent opportunity to learn the latest on where emerging standards are currently at. The archived EDXL101 webinar and slide set can be viewed at: www.oasis-open.org/events/webinars/
