ISO/IEC 11179-1 provides the means for understanding and associating the individual parts of ISO/IEC 11179 and is the foundation for a conceptual understanding of metadata and metadata registries.
ISO/IEC 11179-1 is applicable to the formulation of data representations, concepts, meanings and relationships to be shared among people and machines, independent of the organization that produces the data.
In ISO/IEC 11179-1 (and all other parts), metadata refers to descriptions of data.
Note 1: ISO/IEC 11179-1 is not applicable to the physical representation of data as bits and bytes at the machine level.
Note 2: ISO/IEC 11179-1 does not contain a general treatment of metadata.
ISO/IEC 11179-1 on Metadata registries (MDR) - Framework is useful for:
Generally, descriptive data are known as metadata. Metadata can describe books, phone calls, data, etc. ISO/IEC 11179 focuses upon metadata that describes data.
A metadata registry (MDR) is a database of metadata. Registration is one possible function of that database. Registration accomplishes three main goals: identification, provenance, and monitoring quality. Identification is accomplished by assigning a unique identifier (within the registry) to each object registered there. Provenance addresses the source of the metadata and the object described. Monitoring quality ensures that the metadata does the job it is designed to do.
ISO/IEC 11179 addresses the semantics of data, the representation of data, and the registration of the descriptions of that data. It is through these descriptions that an accurate understanding of the semantics and a useful depiction of the data are found.
ISO/IEC 11179-1 introduces concepts and concept systems in the description of the semantics of data. Object classes, properties, DECs, value meanings, and CDs are concepts. Therefore, they have definitions and may be designated by names or codes. ISO/IEC 11179-1 allows you to organize these definitions through the use of relations among them into concept systems.
A classification scheme is a concept system that is used for classifying some objects and the classification of an object adds meaning to that object. Features needed for formal reasoning are also new to this third edition of ISO/IEC 11179-1. Applying the rules of some form of formal logic (1st order logic, predicate calculus, description logic, etc.) as described in ISO/IEC 11179-1 helps you add additional abilities to query and reason with concept systems. Ontologies are concept systems that allow the application of formal logic and ISO/IEC 11179-1 provides for their use.
The basic attributes specified are applicable for the definition and specification of the contents of data dictionaries and interchanging or referencing among various collections of administered items. The “basic” in basic attributes means that the attributes are commonly needed in specifying administered items completely enough to ensure that they will be applicable for a variety of functions, such as:
BS ISO/IEC 11179-1:2015 supersedes ISO 11179-1:2004, which has been technically revised.
ISO/IEC 11179-1:2015