ISO 22745 specifies a system for descriptive technology consisting of:
open technical dictionary (OTD);
identification guide (IG);
identification scheme;
procedures for maintenance of an OTD;
interfaces for querying information from an OTD, including terminology related to a given concept.
An OTD is a collection of terminology defined by and obtained from consensus bodies such as ISO, IEC, and other groups that have a consensus process for developing terminology. An OTD contains terms, definitions, and images of concepts used to describe individuals, organizations, locations, goods and services. Within ISO 22745, an item is described through membership in a class and a set of property value pairs.
An OTD:
allows properties to be unambiguously defined in an ISO 10303 file;
allows information to be unambiguously defined and exchanged between multi-national partners without loss of meaning;
supports synchronization of databases with minimum data mapping requirements;
provides transparent information flow among multiple information formats and specifically between government and commercial systems;
provides timely and accurate data that can be used to support finance and accounting processes;
supports cost-effective sourcing;
supports inventory management and rationalization;
provides for both commercial and intra-governmental transactions;
supports multiple units of measure and international currencies;
supports multiple classifications and multiple languages.
Any consensus organization can submit terminology for inclusion in an OTD. ISO 22745 does not establish a new process for standardizing terminology. Each OTD will have a globally unambiguous identifier for each concept and provide a reference back to the original source for terminology (terms, definitions and images). OTDs are designed to link terms and definitions with the same semantic content and to reference the original source of each term and definition. Thus, OTDs are intended not to duplicate existing standards, but to provide comprehensive collections of terminology used to describe individuals, organizations, locations, goods and services.
Although the process for harmonizing terminology is outside the scope of ISO 22745, an OTD can serve as a useful research tool to aid the harmonization process, e.g., between ISO, IEC and other standards.
An IG specifies which concepts can be used and constrains which concepts can be linked to each other. An example for the latter is when an IG specifies the properties which can be linked to a class. Furthermore, an IG can specify which terms, definitions and images are applicable, in a case where there are multiple terms, definitions and images for concepts.
Master data is data held by an organization that describes the entities that are both independent and fundamental for that organization, and that it needs to reference in order to perform its transactions.
A catalogue is a representation of master data in the form of property value pairs.
See ISO 22745-1 for a more detailed overview of ISO 22745.
This part of ISO 22745 provides guidelines that are recommended for the development of terminology for concepts for cataloguing.
NOTE 1 Terminology includes terms, definitions and images.
Compliance with these guidelines is not required in order for a term or definition to be included in an OTD. These guidelines are provided as a framework for developers of industrial terminology to ensure that definitions are consistent and understandable. Terminology that complies with these guidelines will be marked as such in the OTD. This will allow a user to perform a search that filters terminology based on compliance with this part of ISO 22745.
The examples in this part of ISO 22745 have been chosen and simplified for illustrative purposes. The translation into other languages may necessitate the selection of other examples to illustrate the point.
The guidelines and examples of term-formation methods, in Clause 7, the guidelines and examples of definition-formation methods, in Clause 8, and the examples of terminology restriction, in Clause 10, are specific to the English language. Clauses 7 and 8, and the examples in Clause 10, are not intended to be translated but adapted to the needs of each language. Future editions of this part of ISO 22745 could include adaptations of Clauses 7, 8, and 10 to languages other than English.
The following typographic conventions are used in this part of ISO 22745:
names of concepts are given in italics;
terms that are defined in ISO 22745-2 are hyperlinks.
NOTE 2 If this part of ISO 22745 and ISO 22745-2 are installed in accordance with the README files, then clicking such a link will cause the browser to go to the entry in ISO 22745-2 where the term is defined.