ISO/TC 37/SC 4 N371
ISO/TC 37 N 549
ISO/TC 37/AG N 171
Report of the ISO/TC 37 Secretariat
to the
ISO/TC 37/AG and ISO/TC 37 Plenary
Provo, August 2007
0 General observations
ISO/TC 37’s standards are probably the widest applied horizontal methodology standards all across
standardization activities. They are crucial for assuring semantic interoperability – especially in the
network of networks of federated repositories of structured content (namely terminologies, language
and other content resources) emerging in conjunction with the semantic web. ISO/TC 37, therefore,
is also represented in the ISO/TMB ad-hoc group “Standards as Databases” (ISO/TMB/AHG
STD_DB). Since terminology standards provide primary “objects” for such database publications,
ISO is planning to implement ISO/CDB, the ISO Concept DataBase. ISO 639 (series) “Codes for
the representations of names of languages” is another candidate for publication as database in the
near future. The same might apply to the ISO/TC 37/DCR “Data category registry”.
1 ISO/TC 37 Membership (as per 2007-05-21)
According to the ISO/TC 37 records there are now 28 P-Members, 30 O-Members, no new internal
and external liaisons.
1.1 28 P-members
Austria (ON), China (SAC), Belgium (NBN) , Bulgaria (BDS) Canada (SCC) ,Colombia
(ICONTEC) , Czech Republic (CNI) , Denmark (DS) , Finland (SFS) , France (AFNOR) ,
Germany (DIN) , Iran, Islamic Republic of (ISIRI) , Ireland (NSAI) , Japan (JISC) ,
Kazakhstan (KAZMEMST) , Korea, Democratic People's Republic (CSK) new , Korea, Republic of
(KATS) , Mexico (DGN) , Netherlands (NEN) , Norway (SN) , Poland (PKN) , Russian
Federation (GOST R) , South Africa (SABS) , Sweden (SIS) , Tunisia (INNORPI) new, USA
(ANSI) , Ukraine (DSSU) new , United Kingdom (BSI) ,
1.2 30 O-members
Barbados (BNSI) , Belarus (BELST) , Chile (INN) , Croatia (HZN) , Cuba (NC) , Egypt
(EOS) , Greece (ELOT) , Hong Kong, China (ITCHKSAR) , Hungary (MSZT) , Iceland (IST) ,
Indonesia (BSN) Israel (SII) , Italy (UNI) , Lithuania (LST) , Malta (MSA) , Moldova,
Republic of (MOLDST) , Mongolia (MASM) , Pakistan (PSQCA) , Romania (ASRO) , Saudi
Arabia (SASO) , Serbia (ISS) , Slovakia (SUTN) , Slovenia (SIST) , Spain (AENOR) ,
Syrian Arab Republic (SASMO) , Tanzania, United Republic of (TBS) , Thailand (TISI) ,
Turkey (TSE) , Venezuela (FONDONORMA) , Viet Nam (TCVN)
Change from O-membership to P-membership since 2006: Korea, Democratic People's Republic
(CSK), Tunisia (INORPI), Ukraine (DSSU),
1.3 Internal and External Liaisons (as per 2007-05-21)
Other ISO, CEN and IEC committees in liaison:
ISO TC 12, TC 20/SC 8, TC 46, TC 61/SC 1, TC 120, TC 145, TC 154, TC 173/SC 2, TC 176/SC
1, TC 184/SC 4, TC 215
ISO/IEC JTC 1, JTC 1/SC 22, JTC 1/SC 29, JTC 1/SC 31, JTC 1/SC 32
IEC IEC/TC 1
International organizations in liaison:
AILA, BISFA, CERN, CIUS, EAFT, EC - Commission, FAO, FIT, GTW, ICAO, ICOGRADA, IFAC, IFLA,
IIF, ISKO, ITU, IUPAC, Infoterm, LAS, LISA, OIML, OMG, REALITER, RIFAL, TERMNET, UATI, UEA -
Esperanto, UIC, UN, UNECE, UNESCO, UPU, WHO, WMO, eCl@ss e.V.
2 Meetings
The previous ISO/TC 37 Plenary meeting took place in Beijing, China 2006-08-25 (see report Doc.
ISO/TC 37 N 537).
The previous ISO/TC 37/AG meeting took place in Beijing, China 2006-08-22 & 23 (see report Doc.
ISO/TC 37/AG N 162).
3 Business Plan 2008-2009, structure and work programme
3.1 Business Plan
The ISO/TC 37 Business Plan 2007-2008 (Doc. ISO/TC 37 AG N 179) will be re-drafted according
to the input from the ISO/TC 37/SCs during the Provo meetings.
4 Activities with ISO/CS
Infoterm and ISO/TC 37 Secretariat have cooperated with ISO/CS in a number of activities.
Special mention has to be made to the efforts to establish the ISO/CDB “Concept DataBase” for
standardized terminologies in ISO, which became feasible due to the results of the first phase of the
terminology project of EAFTerm, the East Asia Terminology Forum. Infoterm on behalf of ISO/TC
37 contributed its experience regarding copyright and other legal issues as well as business models
concerning standardized terminologies and their distribution. As soon as the ISO/CDB is
implemented, ISO/TC 37 will not only have good reason, but even a certain obligation to promote its
standards within ISO.
ISO/CDB is meant as a tool not only to "manage" ISO standardized terminologies (and other kinds
of structured content), but also to provide a platform to all terminology standardizers in the ISO TCs,
to support their activities and also to keep record of the process of development of every single
entry. As such it has to be embedded in or at least combined with the Livelink system supporting
the organization of standards development in the committees.
5 MoU/MG meetings and OFMR 2007
5.1 MoU/MG meetings
The 17th Meeting of the Management Group (MoU/MG) of the ITU-ISO-IEC-UN/ECE
“Memorandum of Understanding concerning eBusiness standardization” was held at ITU
Headquarters in Geneva, 16-17 October 2006. ISO/TC 37 reported that its new title and scope
were now approved (Terminology and other language and content resources). It was emphasized
that TC 37 would continue to focus on human communication aspects. Among the Resolutions
adopted at this meeting, which are of relevance to ISO/TC 37, were:
Resolution 05/11 – Federation of databases defining terminology, properties, etc., whereby the
MoU/MG supports the creation of an open, federated structure of definition databases, in particular
for terminology and properties, and encourages signatory organizations to consider the business
models to enable such a structure, including particularly resolution of intellectual property issues.
Resolution 06/33 – Classification schemes, whereby the MoU/MG recognizes that multiple
classification schemes exist and will continue to be developed for different business functions. The
MoU/MG encourages developers to base such schemes on a common set of product
characteristics ideally based on common product ontologies such as those defined in PLIB (ISO
13584).
Resolution 06/54 – Cultural diversity, whereby the MoU/MG also adopted the ISO/TC 37 N
497Statement on eBusiness Standards and Cultural Diversity (MoU/MG 05 N0222), and
recommended use of its checklist to all MoU/MG participating organizations.
This the second ISO/TC 37 document adopted by the MoU/MG after “Semantic Interoperability and
the need for a coherent policy for a framework of distributed, coordinated repositories for all kinds of
content items on a world-wide scale” (MoU/MG/05 N0221/ISO/TC 37/N496), which had been
adopted in 2005.
ISO/TC 37 was also represented at the 18th meeting of the MoU/MG in Dublin, 2-3 April 2007.
Topics ranged from multilingual and other content in eBusiness, eHealth etc. covering among
others the harmonized use of personal, geographical and other proper names, latest developments
in product classification, product catalogues and product properties, identification/identity
management with the general aim of eBusiness standards convergence. Infoterm reported on
latest developments at ISO/CS concerning the planned ISO/CDB, which is supposed to cover not
only verbal-linguistic data, but also non-linguistic data, as well as new workflows for supporting
experts in the TCs to prepare terminological data (in line with the ISO/IEC Directives adapted for
this purpose). A thorough discussion took place about the “sustainability” of data collection in
databases (especially bibliographical and terminological as well as product-related data – given the
fact that business models are missing). In this connection Voltaire was quoted (1792): “It is
necessary that those between whom commerce is carried out should understand each other”.
Terminology – and ISO/TC 37 standards – definitely has a crucial role in eBusiness.
5.2 OFMR 2007 in New York, 9-11 July 2007
The 10th annual Open Forum on Metadata Registries is again jointly organized by JTC 1/SC
32/WG 2 and ISO/TC 37 with the main theme “Integrating standards in practice”. Given its
traditional focus on topics related to metadata, registries, interoperability, and semantics the central
goal of the Open Forum is to share and advance knowledge and experience about standards, the
technologies that build upon them, and implementation experiences. Several ISO/TC 37 experts
are strongly involved in the organization as well as programme of the conference. Again the
OFMR of this year will be followed by a special coordination meeting of JTC 1/SC 32/WG 2 and
ISO/TC 37.
7 User Group Analysis & organizational development
A survey concerning needs and perception of TC 37 activities from the point of view of industry and
users has been conducted in May/June 2007 in cooperation between ISO/TC 37 secretariat, the
University of Vienna and, in particular, Debbie Garside (ICT Marketing Ltd., SC 2). For the results
of the survey, see Document AG N 177.
The outcome was the basis for a draft of a document concerning organizational development,
carried out by Gerhard Budin (University of Vienna, SC 2 chair): AG N 178.
8 Public relations
The ISO/TC 37 websites are constantly updated
http://www.infoterm.info/standardization/iso_tc_37.php and http://www.iso.org/tc37.
Standing document #1 gives a comprehensive overview of the work programme and the contact
person and will be updated annually in August. The document is available in the folder “Public
information” on http://www.iso.org/tc37.
ISO/TC 37 is now included with an entry in Wikipedia after previous attempts to post an article there
failed.
A suggested open calendar for use by all project leaders and secretariats has not materialized yet
and will be investigated anew.
A conference on Pragmatic Applications of ISO/TC 37 standards in the industry will take place
during the meeting week at Brigham Young University on 13 August. Further information:
www.ttt.org/tc37
PR activities within ISO have been intensified through ISO/CS’s initiative to promote the work of the
horizontal TCs as well as articles by TC 37 secretariat and Working Groups in ISO Focus.