XOMGL (eXtensible Open Municipal Geodata Language) is an XML-based open standard for the exchange of large amounts of government data between a municipal agency and regular citizens and developers creating web-based mapping applications. It is part of the OMG Standard, which seeks to promote the free flow of information between government agencies and citizens by establishing a common set of technical standards for organizing and sharing public data.
Contents
Types of data
The XOMGL format is good for organizing and distributing digitally many types of government data, including crime, building permits, restaurant health reviews, pollution sources, political contributions, property values, traffic accidents, sex offenders, and historic sites.
Fields
It has just enough required fields to allow easy updates and the plotting of data on online maps. It also has enough optional data to allow categorization, filtering, date ranges, images, external links, and latitude and longitude. It provides all of this without overwhelming the end user, providing too much irrelevant data, and displays in an easy to read and manage format.
Usage examples
A government agency would make data available on its website with either static links to files in this format, or queryable versions that allow users to filter the data by last updated date, date range, category, etc.
The XML and JSON versions can be used to automate data importing into web-based software applications, while the CSV version allows regular people to browse, filter, sort, edit, and re-purpose the information with only spreadsheet software knowledge.
Formats vs. Standards
Note there is a distinction between data standards and data formats. A data format like KML, GeoRSS, JSON, XML, CSV, and others describe how to format data to make it machine readable by specific applications. A data standard defines which fields/columns are needed to make raw data usable in these formats. Information in the XOMGL standard can be machine-output to any of the above listed data formats.