What is a Building Block?

An Building Block is a way of packaging a component of a specification that can be re-used in other specifications.

This packaging directly supports reuse (according to FAIR principles), following these Design Principles.

For various reasons specifications have often made statements in text regarding how they relate to other specifications, and created implementation artefacts such as schemas that may not make these intentions explicit. OGC Building Blocks support technology agnostic dependency and rtelationshops - essentially forming the data management method for this apsect of OGC’s knowledge graph (OGC RAINBOW).

The key focus is on automated quality control, via inheritable testing on a simple aspect-by-aspect basis for standards as they are composed from common specification elements into comprehensive specifications to support data exchange and analysis applications/

The following diagram shows how Building Blocks form a value-added packaging option for such specification elements that can then be exploited as part of a comprehensive knowledge base to support discovery and re-use (FAIR principles).

Many OGC Standards contain reusable building blocks that can be used in other OGC Standards. The Standards themselves can also be structured with modular sets of requirements that collectively function as a reusable building block (see image bellow).

To facilitate the discovery of these building blocks by other Standards and applications, once they are identified their definition should be published in the OGC Register. Normative information about the OGC Standards building blocks can be found in the Technical Committee Policies and Procedures