When a data standard/specificaion is used for a given field, provide a way to define _which_ standard was used

Technical
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This discussion is migrated from a Github ticket: When a data standard/specificaion is used for a given field, provide a way to define _which_ standard was used. · Issue #286 · openreferral/specification · GitHub

I have two related thoughts/questions for the community that stem from that original ticket:

  1. Should we require using existing standards for formatting data within HSDS. For example, we could specify that data in email and url fields conform to the ITU-T E.123 standard. Using standards like this has the potential for making data more consistent and machine readable.
  2. Regardless of whether they are required, when there are standards in use it would be helpful to specify which standards they are. I struggle to find an example of multiple standards in use for most common data fields in the USA, but a good reason to specify which standards are in use might be for the sake of international adoption where national standards from other countries may be employed.

The first point, whether we should require additional standards to be employed run into another forum post I’m drafting about how best to make data less ambiguous for end users.

My questions in this thread might be these:

  1. If standards are being used in data, what’s the best way to specify which standards are being used? We could propose new fields. We could use attributes, which is my personal favorite.
  2. If we used attributes, what should the label for this attribute be?
  3. Can/should we create a list of additional sub-standards that can be used for specific data fields in HSDS? Which standards are you aware or employ in your data?