Universal Data Element Framework
Encyclopedia
The Universal Data Element Framework (UDEF) provides the foundation for building an enterprise-wide controlled vocabulary
. It is a standard way of indexing enterprise information that can produce big cost savings. UDEF simplifies information management through consistent classification and assignment of a global standard identifier to the data names and then relating them to similar data element concepts defined by other organizations. Though this approach is a small part of the overall picture, it is potentially a crucial enabler of semantic interoperability
.
, and then as the primary pivot point for transformations between source and target.
UDEF takes a list of high-level root object classes and assigns an integer to each class plus alpha characters to each specialization modifier. It then also assigns integers to property word plus integers to each specialization modifier. These object class alpha-integers are concatenated together with the property integers to form a dewey-decimal like code for each data element concept.
For the following examples, go to http://www.opengroup.org/udefinfo/htm/en_defs.htm and expand the applicable UDEF object and property trees
Assuming an application used by a hospital needs to map the data element concepts to the UDEF, the last name and first name (within UDEF you will find Family Name and Given Name under the UDEF property Name) of several people that are likely to appear on a medical record that could include the following example data element concepts –
Patient Person Family Name – find the word “Patient” under the UDEF object “Person” and find the word “Family” under the UDEF property “Name”
Patient Person Given Name – find the word “Patient” under the UDEF object “Person” and find the word “Given” under the UDEF property “Name”
Doctor Person Family Name – find the word “Doctor” under the UDEF object “Person” and find the word “Family” under the UDEF property “Name”
Doctor Person Given Name – find the word “Doctor” under the UDEF object “Person” and find the word “Given” under the UDEF property “Name”
The associated UDEF IDs for the above are derived by walking up each tree respectively and using an underscore to separate the object from the property. For the examples above, the following data element concepts are available within the current UDEF – see http://www.opengroup.org/udefinfo/htm/en_ob5.htm and http://www.opengroup.org/udefinfo/htm/en_pr10.htm
“Patient Person Family Name” the UDEF ID is “au.5_11.10”
“Patient Person Given Name” the UDEF ID is “au.5_12.10”
“Doctor Person Family Name” the UDEF ID is “aq.5_11.10”
“Doctor Person Given Name” the UDEF ID is “aq.5_12.10”
1. Identify the applicable UDEF property word that characterizes the dominant attribute (property) of the data element concept. For example: Name, Identifier, Date, etc.
2. Identify the dominant UDEF object word that the dominant property (selected in step 1) is describing. For example, Person_Name, Product_Identifier, Document_Date, etc.
3. By reviewing the UDEF tree for the selected property identified in step 1, identify applicable qualifiers that are necessary to describe the property word term unambiguously. For example, Family Name.
4. By reviewing the UDEF tree for the selected object identified in step 2, identify applicable qualifiers that are necessary to describe the object word term unambiguously. For example, Customer Person.
5. Concatenate the object term and the property term to create a UDEF naming convention compliant name where it is recognized that the name may seem artificially long. For example, Customer Person_Family Name.
6. Derive a structured ID based on the UDEF taxonomy that carries the UDEF inherited indexing scheme. For example.
Organizations that implement UDEF will likely realize the greatest benefit by defining their controlled vocabulary based on the UDEF. To help an organization manage its UDEF based controlled vocabulary, it should seriously consider a metadata registry that is based on ISO/IEC 11179-5.
Metadata standards in the early 1990s. Currently, he is a Senior Partner with UDEF-IT, LLC.
The Supplier Management Council Electronic Enterprise Working Group of the Aerospace Industry Association
(AIA) supports the UDEF as the naming convention solution to XML interoperability between standards that include all functions throughout a product's life-cycle and is working through a well defined process to obtain approval of this position from AIA and its member companies.
Example:
As the United Kingdom is part of the European Union, the classification is not unique.
Response
The UDEF is flexible and is designed to match the semantics and behaviour of existing systems. Therefore, if one system has a table for United Kingdom Citizens and a different system has a table for European Union Citizens, the UDEF can handle both situations.
Some of the concepts in UDEF are not as universal as it is claimed. They show a lot of bias to Anglo-American tradition and way of thinking and are not easily transferable to other languages.
Example: The following part of the hierarchy shows the concept of an officer.
In many cultures, the part of the tree below "a.j.5 Contracting Officer Person" would not be placed under j.5 (see officer) as b.j.5 (see Law enforcement officer) or c.j.5 (see Officer (armed forces)
).
Controlled vocabulary
Controlled vocabularies provide a way to organize knowledge for subsequent retrieval. They are used in subject indexing schemes, subject headings, thesauri, taxonomies and other form of knowledge organization systems...
. It is a standard way of indexing enterprise information that can produce big cost savings. UDEF simplifies information management through consistent classification and assignment of a global standard identifier to the data names and then relating them to similar data element concepts defined by other organizations. Though this approach is a small part of the overall picture, it is potentially a crucial enabler of semantic interoperability
Interoperability
Interoperability is a property referring to the ability of diverse systems and organizations to work together . The term is often used in a technical systems engineering sense, or alternatively in a broad sense, taking into account social, political, and organizational factors that impact system to...
.
How UDEF works
UDEF provides semantic links, through assigning an intelligent, derived ID as an attribute of the data element, essentially labeling the element as a specific data element concept. When this UDEF ID exists in both source and target formats, it can then be used as an easy analysis point via a match reportMatch report
In metadata, a match report is a report that compares two distinct data dictionaries and creates a list of the data elements that have been identified as semantically equivalent.- Use of match reports :...
, and then as the primary pivot point for transformations between source and target.
UDEF takes a list of high-level root object classes and assigns an integer to each class plus alpha characters to each specialization modifier. It then also assigns integers to property word plus integers to each specialization modifier. These object class alpha-integers are concatenated together with the property integers to form a dewey-decimal like code for each data element concept.
For the following examples, go to http://www.opengroup.org/udefinfo/htm/en_defs.htm and expand the applicable UDEF object and property trees
Assuming an application used by a hospital needs to map the data element concepts to the UDEF, the last name and first name (within UDEF you will find Family Name and Given Name under the UDEF property Name) of several people that are likely to appear on a medical record that could include the following example data element concepts –
Patient Person Family Name – find the word “Patient” under the UDEF object “Person” and find the word “Family” under the UDEF property “Name”
Patient Person Given Name – find the word “Patient” under the UDEF object “Person” and find the word “Given” under the UDEF property “Name”
Doctor Person Family Name – find the word “Doctor” under the UDEF object “Person” and find the word “Family” under the UDEF property “Name”
Doctor Person Given Name – find the word “Doctor” under the UDEF object “Person” and find the word “Given” under the UDEF property “Name”
The associated UDEF IDs for the above are derived by walking up each tree respectively and using an underscore to separate the object from the property. For the examples above, the following data element concepts are available within the current UDEF – see http://www.opengroup.org/udefinfo/htm/en_ob5.htm and http://www.opengroup.org/udefinfo/htm/en_pr10.htm
“Patient Person Family Name” the UDEF ID is “au.5_11.10”
“Patient Person Given Name” the UDEF ID is “au.5_12.10”
“Doctor Person Family Name” the UDEF ID is “aq.5_11.10”
“Doctor Person Given Name” the UDEF ID is “aq.5_12.10”
Six basic steps to map enterprise data to the UDEF
There are six basic steps to follow when mapping data element concepts to the UDEF.1. Identify the applicable UDEF property word that characterizes the dominant attribute (property) of the data element concept. For example: Name, Identifier, Date, etc.
2. Identify the dominant UDEF object word that the dominant property (selected in step 1) is describing. For example, Person_Name, Product_Identifier, Document_Date, etc.
3. By reviewing the UDEF tree for the selected property identified in step 1, identify applicable qualifiers that are necessary to describe the property word term unambiguously. For example, Family Name.
4. By reviewing the UDEF tree for the selected object identified in step 2, identify applicable qualifiers that are necessary to describe the object word term unambiguously. For example, Customer Person.
5. Concatenate the object term and the property term to create a UDEF naming convention compliant name where it is recognized that the name may seem artificially long. For example, Customer Person_Family Name.
6. Derive a structured ID based on the UDEF taxonomy that carries the UDEF inherited indexing scheme. For example
The Open Group UDEF Project objectives
The UDEF Project aims to establish the Universal Data Element Framework (UDEF) as the universally-used classification system for data element concepts. It focuses on developing and maintaining the UDEF as an open standard, advocating and promoting it, putting in place a technical infrastructure to support it, implementing a Registry for it, and setting up education programs to train information professionals in its use.Organizations that implement UDEF will likely realize the greatest benefit by defining their controlled vocabulary based on the UDEF. To help an organization manage its UDEF based controlled vocabulary, it should seriously consider a metadata registry that is based on ISO/IEC 11179-5.
History of UDEF
Ron Schuldt, Sr. Enterprise Data Architect, Lockheed Martin, originated the UDEF concept based on ISO/IEC 11179ISO/IEC 11179
ISO/IEC 11179 is an international standard for representing metadata for an organization in a metadata registry.- Intended purpose :...
Metadata standards in the early 1990s. Currently, he is a Senior Partner with UDEF-IT, LLC.
Ownership of UDEF intellectual property
The Open Group assumed from AFEI the right to grant public use licensing of the UDEF.The Supplier Management Council Electronic Enterprise Working Group of the Aerospace Industry Association
Aerospace Industry Association
The Aerospace Industries Association ', founded in 1919 only a few years after the birth of flight, is the premier trade association representing the nation's major aerospace and defense manufacturers...
(AIA) supports the UDEF as the naming convention solution to XML interoperability between standards that include all functions throughout a product's life-cycle and is working through a well defined process to obtain approval of this position from AIA and its member companies.
Criticism
Classification in UDEF is not sometimes hampered by ad-hoc decisions that might produce problems.Example:
- b.be.5 is "United-Kingdom Citizen Person" and
- c.be.5 is "European Union Citizen Person"
As the United Kingdom is part of the European Union, the classification is not unique.
Response
The UDEF is flexible and is designed to match the semantics and behaviour of existing systems. Therefore, if one system has a table for United Kingdom Citizens and a different system has a table for European Union Citizens, the UDEF can handle both situations.
Some of the concepts in UDEF are not as universal as it is claimed. They show a lot of bias to Anglo-American tradition and way of thinking and are not easily transferable to other languages.
Example: The following part of the hierarchy shows the concept of an officer.
- j.5 Officer.Person
- a.j.5 Contracting.Officer.Person
- a.a.j.5 Procuring.Contracting.Officer.Person
- a.a.a.j.5 Government.Procuring.Contracting.Officer.Person
- b.a.j.5 Administrative.Contracting.Officer.Person
- b.j.5 Police.Officer.Person
- c.j.5 Military.Officer.Person
In many cultures, the part of the tree below "a.j.5 Contracting Officer Person" would not be placed under j.5 (see officer) as b.j.5 (see Law enforcement officer) or c.j.5 (see Officer (armed forces)
Officer (armed forces)
An officer is a member of an armed force or uniformed service who holds a position of authority. Commissioned officers derive authority directly from a sovereign power and, as such, hold a commission charging them with the duties and responsibilities of a specific office or position...
).
See also
- Data integrationData integrationData integration involves combining data residing in different sources and providing users with a unified view of these data.This process becomes significant in a variety of situations, which include both commercial and scientific domains...
- ISO/IEC 11179ISO/IEC 11179ISO/IEC 11179 is an international standard for representing metadata for an organization in a metadata registry.- Intended purpose :...
- National Information Exchange ModelNational Information Exchange ModelThe National Information Exchange Model is an XML-based information exchange framework from the United States. NIEM represents a collaborative partnership of agencies and organizations across all levels of government and with private industry...
- MetadataMetadataThe term metadata is an ambiguous term which is used for two fundamentally different concepts . Although the expression "data about data" is often used, it does not apply to both in the same way. Structural metadata, the design and specification of data structures, cannot be about data, because at...
- Naming conventions (programming)Naming conventions (programming)In computer programming, a naming convention is a set of rules for choosing the character sequence to be used for identifiers which denote variables, types and functions etc...
- SemanticsSemanticsSemantics is the study of meaning. It focuses on the relation between signifiers, such as words, phrases, signs and symbols, and what they stand for, their denotata....
- Semantic webSemantic WebThe Semantic Web is a collaborative movement led by the World Wide Web Consortium that promotes common formats for data on the World Wide Web. By encouraging the inclusion of semantic content in web pages, the Semantic Web aims at converting the current web of unstructured documents into a "web of...
- Semantic equivalency
- Data elementData elementIn metadata, the term data element is an atomic unit of data that has precise meaning or precise semantics. A data element has:# An identification such as a data element name# A clear data element definition# One or more representation terms...
- Representation termRepresentation termA representation term is a word, or a combination of words, that semantically represent the data type of a data element. A representation term is commonly referred to as a class word by those familiar with data dictionaries...
- Controlled vocabularyControlled vocabularyControlled vocabularies provide a way to organize knowledge for subsequent retrieval. They are used in subject indexing schemes, subject headings, thesauri, taxonomies and other form of knowledge organization systems...
External links
- UDEF Project of The Open Group
- Free Webinar - “Connecting the Dots” of Systems Interoperability Using Open Standards (XML, RDF, and UDEF)
- Free Webinar - UDEF Tutorial Part One)
- Free Webinar - UDEF Tutorial Part Two)
- Free Webinar - "UDEF, an Open Group Standard Supporting TOGAF Interoperability")
- UDEF Frequently Asked Questions
- http://udefsolutions.com/About_Us.html - Obtain Enhanced UDEF Gap Analysis Tool in English, Dutch, or French