ISO/IEC 11179

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ISO/IEC 11179 (formally known as the ISO/IEC 11179 Metadata Registry (MDR) standard) is a standard for representing metadata for an organization in a Metadata Registry.

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[edit] Strategic nature

Today organizations are required to exchange data quickly and precisely between computer systems using EAI Enterprise application integration technologies. Completed transactions must also be regularly transferred to separate data warehouse systems with specialized structures designed to make data retrieval efficient. Many industry experts feel that this can only be done efficiently if data is precisely defined and automated tools are created to exchange data between remote computer systems. Precise exchange of data between computers is also a key driver behind the W3C's Semantic web project.

ISO/IEC 11179 is one of the few mature standards for storing enterprise metadata in a controlled environment.

[edit] Structure of an ISO/IEC 11179 metadata registry

An ISO metadata registry consists of a hierarchy of "concepts" with associated properties for each concept. Concepts are similar to Object-oriented programming Class (computer science) but without the behavioral elements. Properties are similar to Class attributes. ISO standards require that each concept and property must have a precisely worded Data element definition.

[edit] Structure of the ISO/IEC 11179 standard

The standard consists of six parts:

  • Part 1 - Framework
  • Part 2 - Classification
  • Part 3 - Registry metamodel and basic attributes
  • Part 4 - Formulation of data definitions
  • Part 5 - Naming and identification principles
  • Part 6 - Registration

Part 1 explains the purpose of each part. Part 3 specifies the metamodel that defines the registry. The other parts specify various aspects of the use of the registry.

Each Data element in an ISO/IEC 11179 metadata registry:

  • should be registered according to the Registration guidelines (11179-6)
  • will be uniquely identified within the register (11179-5)
  • should be named according to Naming and Identification Principles (11179-5) See Data element name
  • should be defined by the Formulation of Data Definitions rules (11179-4) See Data element definition and
  • may be classified in a Classification Scheme (11179-2) See Classification scheme

ISO/IEC 11179 is strongly recommended by state and federal agencies such as the US Government's XML web site.

[edit] Extensions to the ISO/IEC 11179 standard

Although the ISO/IEC 11179 metadata registry is a complex standard comprising several hundreds of pages, there are users that are attempting to extend these standards to meet various challenges. For example the XMDR project states its purpose as being: ...concerned with the development of improved standards and technology for storing and retrieving the semantics of data elements, terminologies, and concept structures in metadata registries.

[edit] Examples of ISO/IEC 11179 metadata registries

The following metadata registries state that they follow ISO/IEC 11179 guidelines although there have been no formal third party tests developed to test for metadata registry compliance.

[edit] Metadata registry vendor tools that claim ISO/IEC 11179 compliance

Listed alphabetically:

Note that there are no independent agencies that certify ISO/IEC 11179 compliance.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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