We are very happy to announce the release of our first major update to the Open Repair Data Standard (ORDS). This update builds on version 0.1 of the standard with a number of enhancements.
Since the first version of ORDS, we have made two full aggregations of repair data from Open Repair Alliance partners, with the latest including 42,000 records of repair. The changes in version 0.2 reflect our learnings from combining such a large volume of partner repair data. With these changes, we hope to enable more insights into repair and the barriers faced by the repair community, and to help power up the campaign for the right to repair.
What is ORDS?
The Open Repair Data Standard enables a shared approach to collecting and sharing data on community repair of small electricals and electronics. Having this shared approach allows us to identify trends and patterns globally, and within countries and regions, by combining data from local events. With ORDS, we can combine repair data from Open Repair Alliance members around the world.
What’s new in v0.2?
- Recommended options for product category values and repair statuses. These fields were present in v0.1, but in v0.2 we provide a recommended set of categories that represents those products regularly seen at community repair events, and those relevant to policy discussions.
- A new field to record the main barrier to repair of an unsuccessful repair attempt. This information is important for policy discussions, as it gives an indication of the most common recurrent barriers encountered.
- We now include the original partner product categorisation of the repaired product. This shows how partner data has mapped to the ORDS product category, and gives those analysing the data more options for slicing and dicing it as they need.
- We now also formally include the country in which a repair attempt took place. This allows for analysis on a country by country basis. For example, does the repair success rate vary between countries? What are the relative occurrences of different barriers to repair per country?
What’s next?
As the version number of 0.2 suggests, we consider ORDS an evolving standard, and we plan to update it on a more regular basis going forwards.
We will soon be undertaking our 3rd aggregation of repair data – the first to use ORDS v0.2. Any learnings from this will be food for thought for the next update.
Something already in the pipeline for the next version is the inclusion of fault types for the most common product categories – to help understand how the products we see in community repair are failing.
As always, we welcome feedback, and please get in touch if you would like to get involved with the work of the Open Repair Alliance.