6.0  CURRENT STATUS OF BASIC SEMANTIC REPOSITORY AND UNIVERSAL DATA ELEMENT FRAMEWORKS

This section details the status of the BSR and UDEF's progress.

6.1  Basic Semantic Repository Status
"We have a firm hope that all will see the light of day very soon in an on-going operating platform and registration authority," stated Dennis Hill, the chief sponsor of the BSR.²⁴ The BSR's plans are somewhat uncertain. Mr. Hill retired at the end of June 1997 and planned to work with the BSR 25% of his time through the middle of 1999. The BSR resides under TC154, which has accepted two new work items on the BSR and has set up a separate Working Group (WG) to manage its continuation. Mr. Hill's efforts were scheduled to be officially handed-over, along with the work for the development and installation of the operating platform, to a French organization at the TC154 plenary in October 1999. The BSR is also being used as the central neutral reference register for the European Community project on Product and Business Data Harmonization between STEP and EDIFACT. The technical committee has also authorized financial data coordination with TC68 and SWIFT using the BSR. BSR contacts are progressing with the healthcare community. The BSR is involved in the Center for Facilitation of practices and procedures for Administration, Commerce and Transport (CEFACT) simple EDI project, and participating within the XML relationship.

The BSR is a technical infrastructure that provides storage, maintenance, and distribution facilities for reference data about semantic units and their links with operational directories. The prototype, which was authorized by the ISO Executive Board early in 1993 and the BSR Interim Management Committee (IMC) in July 1993, as a joint project between ISO and UN/ECE, had the following major deliverables:

· Definition of the rules and guidelines to be used within the BSR and for BSUs.
· Definition of the data model for the BSR, including BSUs and bridges.
· Definition of the access to the BSR by the user community.
· Development and implementation of a prototype.
· Test population of the prototype.

The broad user community has been exposed to the concepts of the BSR with presentations given to CALS organizations from NATO, United Kingdom (UK) Ministry of Defense (MoD), U.S. DoD and TC 184 including exposure at the European CALS Conference; Finance via SWIFT and TC 68; healthcare via CEN TC 251; industry groups - Electronic Data Interchange Forum for companies with Interest in Computing and Electronics (EDIFICE) (Electronics), and Conseil Europeen des Federations de l'Industrie Chimique (CEFIC) (Chemical). The U.S. presentations have addressed the role the BSR could play in the Presidential Program on Electronic Commerce. A major emphasis in these presentations has been the requirement for user involvement in terms of active, committed resources to work with the central project resource. Overall, the reaction to the BSR project has been positive and supportive. The original plan, to be completed by the end of 1993, was delayed by not having sufficient committed time available for the project due to higher priority tasks for most of the team members.

Recently, ISO TC 154 has given the responsibility for the BSR to a new working group, ISO/TC154 WG1. Its essential scope is to process the Rules and Guidelines document to an international standard, and to oversee the implementation of the operational system.

The Rules and Guidelines document will be sent to ballot at the end of 1999. The initial population of semantic work will be considered in-review but active at the end of 1999 to begin actual work against the repository.²⁵

Given the recent retirement of Dennis Hill, the new BSR contacts are:

· Claude Chiaramonti, ISO/TC 154 WG 1 Convenor, chiara@worldnet.fr
· Emile Bruneau, BSR System Project Leader, emile.bruneau@insee.fr

6.2  Universal Data Element Framework Status
The UDEF is a concept that maps various data standards [ANSI X12, UN/EDIFACT, CALS, STEP, etc.] into a single framework using object classes and properties to define data elements. UDEF is a defense industry initiative supported by Lockheed Martin. The UDEF architect, Mr. Ron Schuldt of Lockheed Martin, believes "the BSR may complement UDEF and provides the needed repository for it."²⁶

As stated on the UDEF_Solutions Web site (http://www.udef.com), the XML/EDI Group, as a part of a proposed global repository, is considering the UDEF for XML. The UDEF is also being considered by the CommerceNet/Graphics Communication Association (GCA)/X12 XML/EDI Internet Discussion Group as a "...structure that would allow the equivalent data elements in CALS, EDIFACT, STEP, and X12 to be easily compared."²⁷ The X12 Strategic Implementation Task Group (SITG) became very interested in the UDEF and recently included the UDEF in its discussions concerning XML. The United States Technical Assessment Group (TAG) to ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee 1 (JTC1) SC30 agreed to cite the work of the CALS UDEF effort as an implementation of ISO/IEC 11179.

6.3  BSR/UDEF Quick Comparison
Table 6.3-1 is a quick reference comparison of the BSR and UDEF.

Table 6.3-1  BSR/UDEF Comparison

24 Dennis Hill: (E-Mail Correspondence, October 6, 1998.)

25 www.iso.ch/bsr/news

26 Position Statement on Global Repositories for XML.
The XML/EDI Group, July 1998, Betty Harvey, Dennis Hill, Ron Schuldt, Martin Bryan, Will Thayer, Dick Raman and David Webber Version: 0.98 http://www.xmledi.com/repository/xml-rep.htm

27 ibid.