Recap of New, Revised, and In Review Standards

Standards are being actively worked on for taxonomies and other terminologies.  Here is a short list of items currently out for comment.  If you would like further information, to have a copy or to comment please let me know.  (Margie Hlava, mhlava@accessinn.com)

1.  ISO/FDIS, Terminology work ­ Principles and methods

This is a liaison ballot from  Technical Committee ISO/TC 37, Terminology and other language and content resources, Subcommittee SC 1, Principles and methods.

This is the third edition of the Standard that establishes the basic principles and methods for preparing and compiling terminologies both inside and outside the framework of standardization, and describes the links between objects, concepts, and their terminological representations. It also establishes general principles governing the formation of designations and the formulation of definitions. This International Standard does not stipulate procedures for the layout of international terminology standards, which are treated in ISO 10241.

Add your comments here: ISO-FDIS, Terminology work ­- Principles and methods

2.  ISO/DIS 26162, Design, implementation and maintenance of terminology management systems

An international view of what we do.

Ballot Description This is a ballot for the draft standard, ISO/DIS 26162, Systems to manage terminology, knowledge and content ­ Design, implementation and maintenance of terminology management systems. This ballot is from TC37 / SC3 (Terminology and other language and content resources / Systems to manage terminology, knowledge and content). Since TC46 / SC9 has a liaison with this committee, we can send in vote recommendations and comments.

ISO/DIS 26162 is one of a family of standards to facilitate the exchange of terminological data. This standard gives guidance on choosing the relevant data categories, designing and implementing a data model and a user interface of a terminology management system (TMS) with a view to the intended user group. The phases described here are indispensable for the successful development of a TMS and for avoiding costly errors. The standard may be used for choosing the appropriate TMS for a certain purpose. This standard is intended for terminologists, software developers and others who are involved in the process of developing or acquiring a TMS. 

Add your comments here: ISO-DIS 26162, Design, implementation and maintenance of terminology management systems

3. ISO/CD 13390, Records management systems — Fundamentals and vocabulary

This is a new standard developed to be the basis of the framework for the ISO 30200 family of standards:  Management System for Records. It describes fundamentals of a Management System for Records, which form the subject of the ISO 30200 family, and defines related terms. All other standards in the family use the vocabulary defined in this standard.

Add your comments here:  ISO-CD 13390, Records management systems — Fundamentals and vocabulary

4 . Systematic Review ISO 21127:2006

This is a systematic review ballot for the published standard, ISO 21127:2006, Information and documentation -- A reference ontology for the interchange of cultural heritage information.

It is the first edition of the standard that is intended to facilitate the exchange of information between cultural heritage institutions by defining a domain ontology  for cultural heritage information. 

Add your comments here: ISO 21127-2006, Information and documentation -- A reference ontology for the interchange of cultural heritage information.

5. ISO/DIS 29383, Terminology policies - Development and implementation

This is a liaison standard from ISO/TC 37, Terminology and other language and content resources, Subcommittee SC 1, Principles and methods.

This standard was previously issued in two parts when it was a Committee Draft (CD). The Draft International Standard (DIS) version has now merged those parts into one standard.

This International Standard provides campaigners, policy-makers and other decision makers in governments and administration, non-profit and commercial organizations with guidelines and a methodology for developing and implementing a comprehensive strategic plan for stating a terminology policy, i.e. a conscious, systematic and managed approach to the creation, maintenance and use of terminology in, and for, defined user communities.

Add your comments here: ISO-DIS 29383, Terminology policies - Development and implementation

6.  Recommendation for the Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS)

SKOS is the cross walk to the NISO thesaurus standard from W3C - related to OWL - Web Ontology Language.  So this is part of your pathway to the Semantic Web

The W3C Semantic Web Deployment Working Group is pleased to announce the publication of a W3C Recommendation for the Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS) Reference : http://www.w3.org/TR/skos-reference/

A new version of the accompanying SKOS Primer has also been published (2009) :http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/NOTE-skos-primer-20090818/

The Working Group now *calls for implementations.*

We would like to hear of any vocabulary (thesaurus, classification system, subject heading system, taxonomy or other KOS) or mapping between vocabularies that has been published in the Web as machine-readable data using SKOS, and/or has been made available via programmatic services using SKOS.

We would also like to hear of any software that has the capability to read and/or write SKOS data, and/or can check whether a given SKOS dataset is consistent with the SKOS data model.

The SWD working group has edited a SKOS Implementation Report (2009) which gathers tool submissions by the SKOS community in response to a W3C's Call for implementations.

7. ISO 25964. Thesauri and interoperability with other vocabularies — Part 1: Thesauri for information retrieval (currently ISO 2788 and ISO 5964)

ISO 25964 is an international standard development project of ISO Technical Committee 46 (Information and documentation) Subcommittee 9 (Identification and description). The assigned Working Group (known as ISO TC46/SC9/WG8) is revising, merging, and extending two existing international standards: ISO 2788 and ISO 5964. (update oct2011)

Part 1 covers the development and maintenance of thesauri, both monolingual and multilingual, including formats and protocols for data exchange.

8. ISO 25964. Information and documentation — Thesauri and interoperability with other vocabularies — Part 2: Interoperability with other vocabularies

This is a big one for our industry - Long awaited and an excellent piece of work spread across a global committee headed by Stella Dexter Clark in the UK. If you have been thinking about how to further leverage your thesaurus and taxonomy this will be full of ideas for you.

ISO 25964-2 was prepared by Technical Committee ISO/TC 46, Information and documentation, Subcommittee SC 9, Identification and description.
Clauses 1-13 of Part 1 correspond broadly to the content of ISO 2788:1986 and ISO 5964:1985. The remaining clauses of Part 1, and the whole of Part 2, cover new ground not previously covered in any international standard.
ISO 25964 consists of the following parts, under the general title Information and documentation Thesauri and interoperability with other vocabularies:
. Part 1: Thesauri for information retrieval
. Part 2: Interoperability with other vocabularies

Part 1 covers the development and maintenance of thesauri, both monolingual and multilingual, including formats and protocols for data exchange.
Part 2 covers interoperability between different thesauri and with other types of structured vocabulary.
ISO 25964 covers development and maintenance of thesauri rather than how to use them in indexing, which is covered by ISO 999.

The ability to identify and locate relevant information among vast collections and other resources is a major and pressing challenge today, hence the need for semantic interoperability. Supporting this need, a variety of web services and other tools are under active development, including (but not limited to):
. registries of vocabularies and metadata schemas,
. repositories of vocabularies and metadata schemas, and
. crosswalk services.

While registries and repositories are outside the scope, this International Standard provides guidance fundamental to the establishment of crosswalk services. Typically these rely on mapping between different schemas and vocabularies. Accordingly, inter-vocabulary mapping will be the principal focus of this part of ISO 25964.
The foundation for discussion of interoperability is laid in Part 1 of ISO 25964, which describes the key characteristics of thesauri and provides guidance on best practice. Unfortunately, however, a comparable international standard does not exist for the other types of vocabulary with which a thesaurus needs to interoperate. For this reason this part of ISO 25964 provides some elementary description of other vocabularies such as classification schemes, subject heading schemes, etc., before making recommendations on mapping between these and thesauri. It does not provide guidance on the construction of vocabularies other than thesauri.
Clauses 1-12 and 14-16 of this part of ISO 25964 deal with the principles and practicalities of interoperability, especially mapping, that apply to most vocabularies and especially thesauri. Clause 13 provides additional guidance for handling the pre-coordinated classes that occur in classification schemes and other vocabularies using the classification approach.
Clauses 17 to 24 are each dedicated to a different type of vocabulary. First priority is given to vocabularies that are commonly used for classifying or indexing resources, namely classification schemes (including those used for records management), taxonomies, subject heading schemes and name authority lists. Notwithstanding their different purposes, terminologies, ontologies and synonym rings are also included. Each clause provides a brief informative description of the vocabulary's key characteristics, contrasting its semantic components with those of a thesaurus, so as to provide context for the interoperability requirements and recommendations that follow.

More information on wiki/sla.