ISO/IEC 11179-5:2015

INTERNATIONAL ISO/IEC
STANDARD 11179-5
Third edition
2015-04-01
Information technology — Metadata
registries (MDR) —
Part 5:
Naming principles
Technologies de l’information — Registres de métadonnées (RM) —
Partie 5: Principes de dénomination
Reference number
©
ISO/IEC 2015
© ISO/IEC 2015
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ii © ISO/IEC 2015 – All rights reserved

Contents Page
Foreword .iv
Introduction .v
1 Scope . 1
2 Conformance . 1
2.1 Conformity for registries . 1
2.1.1 Rules for a conforming registry . 1
2.1.2 Rules for a strictly conforming registry . 1
2.2 Conformity for systems . 2
2.2.1 Rules for a conforming system. 2
2.2.2 Rules for a strictly conforming system . 2
3 Normative references . 2
4 Terms and definitions . 3
5 The relationship of names and identifiers within a registry . 6
6 Names . 6
7 Naming conventions . 7
8 Classes in the metamodel . 7
8.1 Namespace class . 7
8.1.1 Relationship of scoped identifiers and names . 7
8.1.2 Uniqueness. 7
8.2 Naming convention class . 8
9 Development of naming conventions . 8
9.1 Introduction . 8
9.2 Scope principle. 9
9.3 Authority principle . 9
9.4 Semantic principle . 9
9.5 Syntactic principle . 9
9.6 Lexical principle . 9
9.7 Uniqueness principle . 9
10 Concept system relationship to names .10
10.1 Concepts as higher-level classes .10
10.2 Concepts as classification system .10
Annex A (informative) Example naming conventions for names within an MDR registry .11
Annex B (informative) Example naming conventions for Asian languages .21
Annex C (informative) Concordance table for item names .24
Bibliography .25
© ISO/IEC 2015 – All rights reserved iii

Foreword
ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) and IEC (the International Electrotechnical
Commission) form the specialized system for worldwide standardization. National bodies that are
members of ISO or IEC participate in the development of International Standards through technical
committees established by the respective organization to deal with particular fields of technical
activity. ISO and IEC technical committees collaborate in fields of mutual interest. Other international
organizations, governmental and non-governmental, in liaison with ISO and IEC, also take part in the
work. In the field of information technology, ISO and IEC have established a joint technical committee,
ISO/IEC JTC 1.
The procedures used to develop this document and those intended for its further maintenance are
described in the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1. In particular the different approval criteria needed for
the different types of document should be noted. This document was drafted in accordance with the
editorial rules of the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2 (see www.iso.org/directives).
Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject
of patent rights. ISO and IEC shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.
Details of any patent rights identified during the development of the document will be in the Introduction
and/or on the ISO list of patent declarations received (see www.iso.org/patents).
Any trade name used in this document is information given for the convenience of users and does not
constitute an endorsement.
For an explanation on the meaning of ISO specific terms and expressions related to conformity
assessment, as well as information about ISO’s adherence to the WTO principles in the Technical Barriers
to Trade (TBT), see the following URL: Foreword — Supplementary information.
The committee responsible for this document is ISO/IEC JTC 1, Information technology, SC 32, Data
Management and Interchange.
This third edition cancels and replaces the second edition (ISO/IEC 11179-5:2005), which has been
technically revised.
ISO/IEC 11179 consists of the following parts, under the general title Information Technology — Metadata
registries (MDR):
— Part 1: Framework
— Part 2: Classification
— Part 3: Registry metamodel and basic attributes
— Part 4: Formulation of data definitions
— Part 5: Naming principles
— Part 6: Registration
iv © ISO/IEC 2015 – All rights reserved

Introduction
This part of ISO/IEC 11179 contains both principles and rules. Principles establish the premises on which
the rules are based. Registry users may enforce rules as an application of this part of ISO/IEC 11179.
A naming convention is a convention (a set of rules) about names. Many naming conventions have much
in common, whether it is defining a method of specifying names for common usage across application
systems, or developing an organization’s internal policy on the choice of XML tags for data interchange.
A naming convention may be based on principles. In addition, it may contain formal and informal inputs,
such as guidelines, recommendations, company policies, programming conventions, specifications,
procedures, and so on. The purpose of this part of ISO/IEC 11179 is to describe and specify these common
features of naming conventions. This part of ISO/IEC 11179 is intended to have broad applicability,
including areas outside of Metadata Registries.
The goal of any naming convention is to allow development of names for items that have maximum clarity
and transparency of meaning, combined with concision, demanding minimal effort of interpretation by
the end user, subject to the constraints of the system under which the items are processed. A naming
convention can be used to form names by which information about the data is expressed, in a simplified
but still understandable grammar compared to natural language rules. Ideally, the names resemble
summaries of the formal definition of the information being named.
In a metadata registry, one name may be designated as the “registry name,” derived by describing the
content of a metadata item in a structured way, using a set of rules, i.e. by application of a formalized naming
convention. Other names for the same metadata entity may occur in any context. For example, these may be
— software system names,
— programming language names,
— report header names,
— data interchange (e.g. XML) names, and
— names in other natural languages.
Names may have varying levels of rigor applied to their formation and usage. The collection and display of
all names used by any single metadata item can be a major benefit of a metadata registry. The process of
deriving names from concept systems and arranging semantic components with a naming convention forms
a set of consistent, meaningful registry names. Names from other contexts, which may or may not have
been formed with naming conventions, and therefore may have little or no semantic content, are collected
and related to the registry name, thus, contributing in a valuable way to enterprise data management.
Edition 3 of ISO/IEC 11179-3 uses the term designation in reference to most metamodel items except
for the classes Namespace and Naming Convention. The designations for these classes were adopted in
deference to commonly accepted usage. This part of ISO/IEC 11179 will continue to use the term name
for constructs that, for purposes of this part of ISO/IEC 11179, are interchangeable with designation.
NOTE Items from the metamodel described in Edition 3 of ISO/IEC 11179-3 are italicized in this part of
ISO/IEC 11179. Most multi-word designations also contain underscores between words in ISO/IEC 11179-3; the
underscores have been omitted in this part of ISO/IEC 11179 for readability.
The naming principles and rules described in this part of ISO/IEC 11179 apply primarily to names of
concepts, data element concepts, conceptual domains, data elements, and value domains, but can be
extended to any registry content. Differing naming conventions may be applied to different sets of
designatable items. This part of ISO/IEC 11179 should be used in conjunction with those which establish
1)
rules and procedures for attributing, classifying, defining, and registering items .
1) Refer to 11179-6 Ed. 3 for a discussion of identification.
© ISO/IEC 2015 – All rights reserved v

This part of ISO/IEC 11179 may be used for applications that are unrelated to ISO/IEC 11179-3, i.e. this
part of ISO/IEC 11179 has broad applicability for use in describing naming conventions for almost any
need or purpose. The same principles apply.
In Annex A, all of the examples are given with English terminologies. However, there is an intention that
those rules be effective in other natural languages, even i
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