FW: ISO CD 11179-3 Ed3 ("Metadata Registry Metamodel") is out for ballot

["Breininger, Kathryn R" <kathryn.r.breininger@boeing.com>]

Additional comments - 


Kathryn Breininger
Boeing Library Services
425-965-0182 phone




-----Original Message-----
From: Moberg Dale [mailto:dmoberg@axway.com] 
Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2007 11:50 AM
To: Breininger, Kathryn R
Subject: FW: ISO CD 11179-3 Ed3 ("Metadata Registry Metamodel") is out
for ballot

here is another in the thread

Ed seems to think that RegRep may be an interested party in this space.

-----Original Message-----
From: Ed Barkmeyer [mailto:edbark@nist.gov]
Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2007 10:37 AM
To: Sridhar Iyengar
Cc: adtf@omg.org; bmi@omg.org
Subject: Re: ISO CD 11179-3 Ed3 ("Metadata Registry Metamodel") is out
for ballot

Sridhar Iyengar wrote:

> Do you know who (which vendors, national bodies) are pushing for this?

> Has any one committed to implementing the proposed standard.

The lead National Body is the United States.  With respect to the new
edition 3 of ISO 11179, I think there is one committed vendor
-- Farance, Inc. -- and it is likely that there will be other
contractors who will be asked to implement this for the U.S. 
"intelligence community".

Editions 1 and 2 (2000 and 2004), which were ONLY about managing data
elements (standard names and codes and their meanings), are a good
thing.  There are several dozen implementations (in the U.S., the E.U.,
Canada and Australia) of ISO 11179 for
  - ISO code registries (country codes, language codes, etc.)
  - Healthcare treatment and diagnostic codes
  - Industry and labor classification codes
  - Statistical sampling area codes (U.S. SMSA, E.U. ECSA?)
  - Geological references

As Evan says, most of these registries were created by government
organizations or government contractors.

> Agree we should discuss and come up with an OMG position and I propose

> we push back on the effort to reinvent the wheel OMG has already 
> established.

NIST agrees with this.

But we need to be careful about the reinvention of wheels.  MOF
Lifecycle and Versioning might well have profited from examining the
characteristics of ISO 11179 AdministrationItem, so as to ensure that
there was at least a clear mapping, and we might still do such a mapping
in the FTF/RTF.

The good ideas in ISO 11179 are:
  (1) they understand and model the difference between codes and the
things they refer to
  (2) they capture "lifecycle metadata": provenance, effectivity,
authority, responsibility

But the new edition is trying to apply these ideas to a much larger
spectrum of modeling and vocabulary concepts.  The analog I have used
is: We know a lot about managing horses; we are therefore experts in
managing zoos.

The NIST position is that the 11179 developers have exceeded the scope
of their work item, and apparently of their participating expertise.  If
we distinguish the technical models from the attached administration
metadata, their mission might reasonably be understood as ADDING the
administration metadata to the EXISTING technical models that are
already standardized.  Whether that is best accomplished by copying the
technical models into 11179, or by creating 11179-consistent addenda to
the related technical standards, is a standards strategy concern that
should be addressed by SC32 or JTC1.  But in any case, the promulgation
of COMPETING technical models in 11179 is to no one's benefit.

So we have two thrusts:
  - is this specification clear and sound on its own?
  - how does this specification relate to existing ISO and OMG standards
and work items?

The former is the subject of expert comments.  The latter is the basis
for a formal OMG position.

-Ed


-- 
Edward J. Barkmeyer                        Email: edbark@nist.gov
National Institute of Standards & Technology Manufacturing Systems
Integration Division
100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8263                Tel: +1 301-975-3528
Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263                FAX: +1 301-975-4694