FISH Interoperability Toolkit

The FISH Interoperability Toolkit funded by English Heritage and the National Trust has been developed by the Forum on Information Standards in Heritage to assist with the process of moving information between the wide variety of information systems used to record the historic environment.

This site introduces and provides links to the main components of the Toolkit. It is a provisional site, pending the construction of a permanent internet home for the Toolkit. Comments are welcome, and should be sent to emma.turner@english-heritage.org.uk. If you are interested in contributing or learning more, consider joining the FISH technical forum.

Technical tools:

• MIDASXML. The heart of the Toolkit is a W3C XML schema which provides a common format for the storage, processing and exchange of historic environment information. It covers all the information currently included in the MIDAS standard issued by FISH.
  • MIDAS XML Schema
    • 1.1 (current version)
  • Examples
  • MIDAS XML Schema documentation
  • INSCRIPTION controlled vocabulary identifiers. Use these formal abbreviations in your MIDAS XML to identify the namespace - a reference to a specific thesaurus or terminology list - of your terms.


• Toolkit Data Validator.This online application validates the content of MIDASXML files. The presence or absence of data required by standards such as the English HER Level 1 Benchmark is checked, and compliance to terminology standards issued by FISH in the INSCRIPTION standard is verified. Reports are issued on the compliance of each entry to the relevant standards.
  • Data Validaton Tool (current version)
  • Data Validaton Tool Documentation


• Historic Environment Exchange Protocol (HEEP).This Web Services protocol provides a specification for IT developers to use in developing internet enabled versions of datasets ('data servers' in the jargon). It is a specification for a 'Web Service' which is a widely used IT industry standard for creating online access to data. HEEP standardises the manner in which historic environment information resources can be queried remotely, and the format in which the requested data is delivered to 'clients' (i.e. those machines requesting the data). It will also standardise how HEEP-enabled servers report their capabilities and permissions required for access, and the format in which exceptions (problems) are reported.
  • HEEP specification (RC 1.0)
  • HEEP schema


• Data Validator maintenance tool.This online database stores the terminology standards and processing rules that support the operation of the Data Validator. Access is limited to Toolkit Consortium members.

Documentation and presentation materials:

Supporting reference information, presentations information sheets and training materials will be developed as experience with the Toolkit progresses.

• Documentation
  • MIDAS XML Attribute values recommendation
• Information sheets and presentations
  • FISH Interoperability Toolkit Project information sheet (.pdf 161K)
  • Building Interoperability (MS Powerpoint 615K)
  • FISH Toolkit Overview, Presented at CAA (Computer Applications in Archaeology) 2005 (Powerpoint 212K)
• Training materials and case studies
  • MIDAS XML Case Study - the English Heritage Listed Building System