RICS Data Standard
The concept of using data to revolutionise business progress is happening across almost all industries. Its value lies in its potential to enable us to discover insights into ways of doing things better that fundamentally improve the world around us
The opportunities for the built and natural environment sectors which have flourished for hundreds of years on finding innovative ways to foster communities, manage land and resources, and build successful clusters of towns and cities, are vast.
How can we ensure we don't miss out on these opportunities to improve productivity and innovation?
How do you manage your data?
The problem is that much of the existing data on real estate from land itself, through planning, construction, sales, leasing, letting, occupation, maintenance to end of life, is still held in fundamentally paper form, albeit available in PDF format or as scans of original documents. Where data is held in more formal, structured databases or as Excel spreadsheets, a lack of common data standards and data models still makes sharing data within organisations and across the broader marketplace problematic.
This is a problem because data as we understand it today – continually forming in real time, and in gigantic quantities – can only really reach its true potential if it is shared, facilitating collaboration and fluid decision making to best serve the needs of our clients.
Take the construction industry for example. Without data being available and shared in a common format, the ability to carry out meaningful benchmarking across global construction and infrastructure projects is very limited.
The benefits of sharing data can be seen across the sector, allowing market transparency, improved productivity and insights to share with our clients to win business and positively impact the built and natural environments around us.
RICS Data Standard (RDS)
The schema and example data files are available in both XML and JSON formats with html documentation in separate JSON and XML directories. The current version supersedes previous RICS Data Standards for IPMS and ICMS which have both been incorporated into this single schema allowing users to capture, share and exchange data on land, property, real estate, and infrastructure assets. Where appropriate, the RDS references and supports a range of RICS and international standards covering property measurement, valuation, due diligence, life cycle costing, carbon emissions, building operation, brokerage, leasing, and building surveying.
The RDS is available under the MIT License and RICS can provide technical support on the implementation of the RDS.
For further information and support please contact datastandards@rics.org