GRCSchema.org is a collaborative community initiative dedicated to developing, maintaining, and promoting Common Data Format schemas within the Governance, Risk, and Compliance sectors.

We are committed to simplifying the complexities of API data format design by advocating for the adoption of a Common Data Format. Our goal is to enhance digital ecosystem interoperability where developers can easily interact with APIs using standardized data representations.

Our initiative aims to standardize JSON structure and access across the web, moving beyond the proprietary JSON structures of individual platforms. This facilitates a more intuitive development environment by eliminating the need for API-specific documentation to decode data structures.

By reusing vocabularies and establishing a unified framework across APIs, we support data model separation from syntax and promote the use of discoverable, consistently formatted identifiers. These practices ensure that API data is not only machine-readable but universally understandable, making data from various APIs easily integrable and manageable.

The Common Data Format also embodies the "Don't Repeat Yourself" (DRY) principle in API design, reducing redundancy and streamlining API development and maintenance. This enhances efficiency and fosters a collaborative environment where developers can focus on innovation.

Ultimately, GRCSchema.org champions the creation and adoption of a Common Data Format to promote consistency, longevity, and accessibility in API design. This standardization is crucial for advancing global data management practices, ensuring seamless interoperability across the digital landscape, and supporting a future where digital platforms can communicate and collaborate effortlessly.

Joining the group

If you wish to contribute, you can do so in multiple ways.

Proposals for JSON structures

Any organization can propose a new or updated JSON structure at no cost. What follows is a generic outline in markdown format.

# Topic Outline: Proposal for a new or updated Thing or Property

1. **Introduction**
   1. Overview of the new or updated Thing or Property
   2. Key objectives for creating or updating the Thing or Property

2. **Thing/Property Name**
   1. Definition and Scope
   2. New JSON Overview (which items are net new?)
   3. Updated JSON Overview (which items propose changes to existing structures?)
   3. Presentation of Schema in JSON-LD format

3. **Structure Mappings**
   1. List all mappings to existing standards found at the [CDF page](https://grcschema.org/docs/reference/why-a-common-data-format).
   2. List all **‌new** standards that should be added to the CDF page.
   
4. **Entity Relationship Diagrams (ERD)**
   1. Visual Representation of mappings of the new JSON structure to existing standards or new standards.

5. **Use Cases and Examples**
   1. Examples of new or updated Thing or Property
   2. Real-World Applications of new or updated Thing or Property

Email the proposal to admin@grcschema.org.

Joining the Voting Board

The organizations that vote on acceptance of new proposals, do so as an ad-hoc committee, meeting via email routed to the group for voting (for now). The voting board is asked to join the various discussions around each of the proposals found within the site’s forum. Once the disucssions have been concluded, the current general manager will email the group for an up or down vote.

Any organization can join the voting board - all we ask is to help defray the cost of the website maintenance with a fee of $1,170 per year (the average cost of a year’s worth of workday grande lattes). Once you’ve joined the forum, you can upgrade when it’s time to vote or you can go into the billing section of your account and upgrade there.

Terminology

JSON-LD

JSON-LD¹ is a lightweight Linked Data format. It is easy for humans to read and write. It is based on the already successful JSON format and provides a way to help JSON data interoperate at Web-scale. JSON-LD is an ideal data format for programming environments, REST Web services, and unstructured databases such as CouchDB and MongoDB.

JSON-LD Context

In JSON-LD, a context² is used to map terms, i.e., properties with associated values in an JSON document, to URLs. A term is a short word that expands to a URL. Terms may be defined as any valid JSON string other than a JSON-LD keyword.

Linked Data

Linked Data³ is a way to create a network of standards-based machine interpretable data across different documents and Web sites. It allows an application to start at one piece of Linked Data, and follow embedded links to other pieces of Linked Data that are hosted on different sites across the Web.