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

Strategic nature

Today organizations are required to exchange data quickly and precisely between computer systems using enterprise application integration technologies. Completed transactions must also be regularly transferred to separate data warehouse and business rules 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.

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 classes in object-oriented programming but without the behavioral elements. Properties are similar to Class attributes. ISO standards require that each concept and property have a precisely worded data element definition.

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.

Overview of 11178 Data Element

The Data element is foundational concept in an ISO/IEC 11179 metadata registry. The purpose of the registry is to maintain a semantically precise structure of data elements.

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

Data elements that store "Codes" or enumerated values must also specify the semantics of each of the code values with precise definitions.

Adoption of 11179 Standards by International, Federal and Local Organizations

The use of metadata standards is strongly encourage by organizations that exchange large amounts of data. Organizations such as the United Nations and the US Government are large users of 11179 standards.

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

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.

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.

• Australian Institute of Health and Welfare - Metadata Online Registry (METeOR)
• US Department of Justice - Global Justice XML Data Model GJXDM
• US Environmental Protection Agency - Environmental Data Registry
• US Health Information Knowledgebase (USHIK)
• US National Cancer Institute - Cancer Data Standards Repository (caDSR)
• US National Information Exchange Model NIEM
• Minnesota Department of Education Metadata Registry (K-12 Data)
• Minnesota Department of Revenue Property Taxation (Real Estate Transactions)

Metadata registry vendor tools that claim ISO/IEC 11179 compliance

Listed alphabetically:

• Data Foundations Metadata Registry
• Oracle used to offer Enterprise Metadata Manager (EMM) through their consulting practice but the service is no longer listed on the company web site.

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

See also

• Data dictionary
• Data reference model
• Global Justice XML Data Model
• National Information Exchange Model
• Representation term
• Semantic Web
• Universal Data Element Framework

References

• ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee on Metadata Standards Web Site
• 11179 Document List
• ISO/IEC 11179-1:2004 Metadata registries (MDR) - Part 1: Framework
• ISO/IEC 11179-2:2005 Metadata registries (MDR) - Part 2: Classification
• ISO/IEC 11179-3:2003 Metadata registries (MDR) - Part 3: Registry metamodel and basic attributes
• ISO/IEC 11179-4:2004 Metadata registries (MDR) - Part 4: Formulation of data definitions
• ISO/IEC 11179-5:2005 Metadata registries (MDR) - Part 5: Naming and identification principles
• ISO/IEC 11179-6:2005 Metadata registries (MDR) - Part 6: Registration
• Extended Business XML Naming Conventions
• A (non-normative, unofficial) OWL ontology for ISO/IEC 11179-3 version 2. Authored by Kevin D. Keck (kdkeck@lbl.gov). Last modified 2005-Jan-21

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