Description of Track for Standards,
Technologies and Tutorials
The Standards Track introduces the types of registries that are the focus of this Open Forum. What are the registries? How can they be used? How can they be used together?
The first day brings all participants together to hear a description of each type of registry and a description of the standards relevant to each type of registry. Attention will be given to how the registries might interoperate. The second day breaks into concurrent sessions with tutorials on how to use each type of registry.
The following are the types of registries that are the Focus of this Open Forum
The term “registry” is used loosely to bring these together. Some are well recognized as registries, while others commonly go by names such as encyclopedias, catalogs, etc.
Using the term loosely, there are several types of registries in the area of web services, and data management and interchange. The registries have some common, overlapping content, which is extended and utilized in different ways. The registries vary according to the intended purpose, granularity of contents, the level of semantics management, and other ways. Users may have to work with several of these registries simultaneously, since the registries perform different functions. There is a need for the registries to cooperate/ interoperate, since they contain related and sometimes overlapping information. The data must be kept updated and synchronized with a minimum of effort.
An example of possible common content is the identification of countries. The same information might be recorded as a different structure for each type of registry, depending on the intended use. For example:
Moreover, the same “facts” may be represented in different ways. E.g., ISO 3166, a standard for country identifiers, gives a short English name, a short French name, a three character alpha code, a three character numeric code, and other forms of representation. See figure, below.
It is neither likely nor desirable that all of the different representations will be discarded in favor of a single “standardized” representation. However, a particular representation might be “preferred” for a particular organization or group of organizations, especially for interchange of data. Cooperation and Interoperability between registries requires the management of the underlying semantics (meaning) and representation of the data. How can the semantics be managed (including changes, such as the formation of new country names)? How can the information be synchronized throughout an organizations registries and systems?
This track will introduce the types of registries and describe standards relevant to each. It also includes tutorials about the standards and various implementations. The speakers are encouraged to not only describe the state-of-the-art in the standards and implementations, but also to show how users might utilize one type of registry along with others. Sessions are intended to describe the capabilities of each type of registry and also how each type of registry could cooperate/interoperate with other types.
There is a great range in the level of standardization for the various registries. ISO/IEC 11179 is an international standard with the imprimatur of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). For terminology registration, there is an ISO standard for Thesauri, but standards for Ontologies are slim to none. Most of the other registries have some related standards in various stages of development by a range of organizations from ISO to industry consortia.
Following the first two days of presentations about the types of registries (the Standards Track), the following three days will present (in concurrent tracks) how the registries are used in various areas of interest.