Use open standards and solutions
Use open standards and solutions
On this page
What are open standards and solutions?
Open standards are rules that guide digital practices toward a particular goal. These standards can take the form of file formats, digital protocols, and digital interfaces that are non-proprietary. Open solutions refer to software whose source code is publicly available and freely usable.
Why is this important?
Using open standards and solutions makes it easier to work with other stakeholders. You don’t have to rely on proprietary solutions that limit your options. As a result, your organization has full control over its technological architecture, while ensuring fiscal responsibility, interoperability and tested solutions.
How to do it
These are suggested steps on how to implement open standards and solutions. Depending on where you’re at in your process, you might not need to follow every step.
Discover
- Understand your obligations. Identify your obligations for using open standards and solutions. Consult with your departmental IT experts to clarify any uncertainties and ensure that your product aligns with federal policies.
- Research open standards and solutions. Learn about open standards and solutions that are available, how they are being used and how they can work for your product. Prioritize open standards and solutions that are compatible with your product, well-established and interoperable; adhere to robust security practices; comply with policy; and are scalable. There is no one-size-fits-all standard or solution, so trying different combinations will help you find a solution that works.
- Consult with experts. Consult with experts to find out how other jurisdictions are using open standards and solutions.
- Understand risks. Assess the risks associated with various standards (such as privacy and cyber security) and infrastructure environments, including cloud-based platforms, on-premises systems and hybrid setups. Explore options and scenarios to understand risks associated with product unavailability, end-of-life situations or risks that exceed acceptable thresholds.
- Learn the necessary skills needed to use open standards and solutions. Adopting new protocols may require new skills. Make sure you have allocated time to learn new skills, as necessary.
Build
- Integrate open standards and solutions. Integrate the chosen open standards and solutions to your product, ensuring that it meets the needs of your users.
- Develop modular and reusable code. Develop modular and reusable code to make updates and enhancements easy. Make your code open to the outside world for sharing under an open licence.
- Document the solutions you are using. When integrating open standards and solutions, make sure that your processes include detailed records, thorough documentation and adherence to coding best practices. This will make it easier in the future to maintain and iterate your product.
- Ensure interoperability. Ensure that the solutions and standards you adopt are interoperable with a range of systems, platforms or devices (mobile devices, voice assistants).
Test
- Do usability testing. Perform usability tests on the open solutions you’ve integrated to your product.
- Carry out interoperability testing. Do interoperability testing to ensure that your product can seamlessly interact with other systems, platforms and services. This will enhance user experience and reduce the risk of creating data silos.
- Conduct security testing. Test the security of the integrated open solutions to safeguard your product and systems.
Monitor and iterate
- Evaluate the performance. Use key performance indicators (KPIs) like code quality, roadmap transparency, community engagement, adoption rates, security, and overall solution stability to assess the effectiveness of the open standards and solutions integrated into your product.
- Gather feedback. Gather user insights to identify areas for improvement.
- Iterate your product continuously. Use collected insights to refine proposed changes to the open standards and solutions you’ve implemented.
- Monitor updates. Stay informed about ongoing developments in the open standards and solutions you’re using as they are continuously updated by their developers.
Resources
Principles
Principles to adopt in your product development
- Interoperability
- Accessibility
- Security
- Transparency
- User-centric design
- Scalability
- Compliance
- Community involvement
Considerations
Tools and resources
- Canada’s Digital Charter
- Why open-source matters
- Open first whitepaper: open standards
- Open resource exchange
- Working with data and application programming interfaces (APIs)
- Innovate On Demand, Episode 9: Working In The Open
- Direction on the Secure Use of Commercial Cloud Services: Security Policy Implementation Notice (SPIN)
Case studies
Talent
- Web/software developers with expertise in open-source coding
- Cloud security and risk management
- API technical and data standards
- Legal expertise
- Policy expertise
- Data analysis
- Stakeholder engagement
GC policy instruments
Laws
Policy
Directives, guidelines and standards
Help us improve
This work is iterative, and we will continue to improve on it based on your feedback.
Share your thoughts and suggestions by email: servicedigital-servicesnumerique@tbs-sct.gc.ca