This site provides reference material for implementers of the Canadian Profile of CAP. Also known as the CAP Canadian Profile – or simply CAP-CP – it is a place where one can find the collective understanding and motivation behind what went into CAP-CP as written by some of the CAP-CP Working Group members that first created the Canadian Profile.
In 2008, a group of individuals from the Public Alerting community in Canada, representing front line issuers to end of the line distributors, came together to establish a profile of CAP for Canada. Several of these individuals are also members of OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards), the International governing body for the CAP standard, and who have also been directly involved in defining the reference CAP standard for many years.
Furthermore, this site also discusses an actual implementation of CAP-CP. This implementation is from Environment Canada and for the purposes of CAP-CP, is known as the Reference Interpretation. It does not take the position of being a definitive interpretation; however, it is an interpretation that is far reaching in scope and can be used as a starting point for referencing many issues now and in the future.
The site is written for both non-technical project managers and technical implementers; to accomplish addressing each audience, it has been separated into three sections. Below is a description of each section and the audience it is intended to serve:
Basic Principles and Best Practices:
This section discusses basic principles relevant to using both XML and CAP and how it relates to public alerting. It introduces the reader to the standardization of public alerting on a national and international basis and discusses many of the XML best practices that can be applied. Intended for non-technical project managers, this section also identifies some business specific challenges, and the principles and practices to overcome them.
Reference Interpretation:
This section is a business-level discussion of CAP-CP for project managers on a non-technical level. It discusses many design issues that were experienced by Environment Canada while implementing CAP-CP. Links to CAP-CP examples in the Implementation Guide section, as described below, are also included.
Implementation Guide:
This section contains very specific CAP-CP examples and scenarios that can be referenced and used by engineers and software developers. It is decidedly technical; containing actual XML crafted to ensure interoperability between alerting systems. It provides additional commentary for implementation engineers and allows managers to see actual examples.
How to approach the Information found here?
The approach taken on this site is not to discuss specifics of hazardous events; nor is it to discuss what is intended to be left in the minds of the intended audience after they receive it. Instead, the approach will be on the features that CAP and CAP-CP have that can be employed as an implementer of CAP, to keep your public alerting messaging engine running smooth. Using the analogy of an car kept in peak condition, we would explain why you need a tune up and then provide a link for your technician to see an examples of how to perform one.