SAIF Glossary – WORKING DRAFT 5
This glossary provides definitions of the core concepts involved in discussing the SAIF and its component parts.
To be added:
· <plus BF terms from John Koisch>
· <terms defined in SAIF BF doc but omitted from glossary> -- ongoing
· <terms defined in SAIF ECCF doc but omitted from glossary> -- ongoing
· <terms defined or mentioned in SAIF Intro doc but omitted from glossary>-- ongoing
· Finish defining terms below
· Review and validate definitions below
Term / Definition / Source /???application roles / Represent a set of communication responsibilities that an application might implement. Thus, they describe system components or sub-components that send or receive interactions. / (BF, sec 2.8.2) John K - can you provide us with a definition of application roles? Definition from Vishnu’s doc.
??? highly informational systems / The Clinical Document Architecture (CDA)-based notion of “less-informational and highly-informational systems” has a more formal framework that can be deployed outside the domain of CDA.
Let’s not include this term. I can’t find this concept in the CDA documentation at: http://xml.coverpages.org/CDA-Release2-Unofficial.html / Ref: Intro
Question to Ron from CLT – why is this section 1.3.5.1.3.3 in the Intro? Should we delete this section?
??? information object / This is an RM-ODP, profiled by HL7 ArB construct– please ask John K to define this - clt / BF, appendix B
non-automated certification / Certification of conformance assertions if the corresponding conformance statements are made only at the CIM or the PIM level. Only PSM-level conformance statements have a high chance of fully automated certification. / ECCF, sec 1.8.2
post-transaction assessment / The degree of success of the transaction in progress or immediately following completion. / Intro, sec 1.3.2.1
pre-transaction agreement / A contract that clearly details the specifics of the expected results of the transaction. / Intro, sec 1.3.2.1
??? Unified Field Theory (sec 1.3.4.2.7.4), / I vote to nuke this term as it is only mentioned in the Intro and not elsewhere. Can we substitute "interoperability paradigms" for "UFT"? Karen
Agree – this was meant to be a pun which no longer adds anything to the SAIF discussion. CLT
accountability / A description of “who does what when.” Accountability describes the perspective of the various technology components that are involved in a particular instance or scenario designed to achieve Working Interoperability.
Accountability is what a relationship between two systems may achieve, derived from the obligations, permissions, and prohibitions associated with the roles.
The quality of being responsible for one's actions. / Copied from BF
[IBM Dictionary of Computing]
accountability community / A community that consists of a number of well-defined obligations, goals, and accountabilities. Communities refer to the underlying roles and defined contracts between roles.
The Accountability Community's focus is on achieving a particular, overarching business goal, characterized by one or more verifiable accountabilities. / ECCF document
BF document
Accountability pattern / A Unified Modeling Language (UML) expression of the relationship between two parties (the responsible party and the commissioning party) –– who have come together in the context of a defined set of responsibilities and goals. The most important feature of the pattern is the explicit separation of behaviors between the responsible and commissioning parties.
Patterns are empirically proven approaches of conceptualizing and solving problems. The Accountability pattern may be applied irrespective of technology or implementation. / BF Document and by reference: Martin Fowler – “Analysis Patterns”
accountability type / Represents valid types of accountability. / From Martin Fowler – “Analysis Patterns”
ArB / HL7 Architecture Board. / HL7 wiki
architectural style / A family of systems that is defined in terms of a pattern of structural organization. More specifically, an architectural style defines a vocabulary of components and connector types, and a set of constraints on how they can be combined. [Shaw and Garlan] / From 9/10 list
architecture / A set of resources, relationships, patterns, practices, and processes that collectively define a system and its products-of-value.
From an HL7 perspective, the following definition is also useful:
The collection of parties (persons, organizations, or systems), roles, responsibilities, relationships, processes, and deliverables which collectively define the “what, who, and how” of the specifications which HL7 develops.” / From 9/10 list
artifact / Any portion of a specification that is controlled and can be versioned. For example, an artifact can be a model, a document, or an XML schema. / From 9/10 list
behavior / Which definition do you prefer? [kgs]
A collection of interactions with a set of constraints on when they can occur in a given Working Interoperability or business process context.
Behaviors are collections of actions associated with instances of roles. The actions are associated with a set of constraints on when they can occur.
[IBM Dictionary of Computing]
(1) The way in which managed objects, name bindings, attributes, notifications, and operations interact with the actual resources that they model and with each other.
(2) In object-oriented programming, the functionality embodied within a method.
(3) The observable effects of an operation or event, including its results. / Ref: BF
behavior specification / Fully specified in a services paradigm. A service is a set of behavioral actions that are bound together at an interface that supports a cohesive and coherent set of actions.
Behavior is underspecified in the messaging paradigm because behavior can only be specified on an interaction-by-interaction basis. / Ref: BF
Behavioral Framework / Defines the workflow (process steps) for producing the interim deliverables that result in the interoperable functions. / From “one-sentence definitions”
business capability / See Capability. / Referenced at (sec 1.3.4.2.7.1)
business process / Which definition do you prefer? kgs
One or more defined interactions between two trading partners who desire to accomplish a common goal. [BF]
A defined set of business activities that represent the steps required to achieve a business objective. It includes the flow and use of information and resources. [IBM] / Ref: BF
candidate component / An application, service, tool, or infrastructure component that is evaluated for compatibility with the National Cancer Institute (NCI) CBIIT Enterprise Architecture Specification (EAS). / From 9/10 list
capability / A capability – exposed as an instance of a service - may be described in terms of the semantics required to integrate that capability into some larger behavioral pattern. For example, an Order Management Capability may be exposed via component realizing an interface specification.
This capability could take on a particular role within a given business context, under which auspices it would participate in certain interactions that were driven by certain triggers.
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I don’t think these paragraphs from the BF actually define “capability,” which means “the quality of being capable; capacity; ability; feature.” [World Dictionary]
An abstract definition of functional software characteristics (function, interface, property, event, and so forth) or nonfunctional software characteristics (scalability, portability, performance, and so forth). [IBM]
Which definition do you prefer? / BF
[World Dictionary]
[IBM]
certification of conformance / A validation of trust. Certification is the quantitative verification that a technology binding/implementation has made a conformance assertion that correctly implements a specific conformance statement made in a given instance of a specification stack.
A simple dictionary definition is “to attest as certain; give reliable information of; confirm.” / ECCF
Clinical Document Architecture (CDA) / Clinical Document Architecture. A CDA document is comprised of a header, referred to as the "CDA Header”, and a body, which at CDA Level One is referred to as the “CDA Level One Body”. The CDA Header identifies and classifies the document and provides information on authentication, the encounter, the patient, and the provider.
The body contains the clinical report. The CDA Level One Body is comprised of nested containers. There are four types of containers: sections, paragraphs, lists and tables. Containers have contents and optional captions. Contents include plain text, links, and multimedia. Both the header and the body use the data types defined in the HL7 RIM. / HL7 Glossary of Terms
collaboration / A global view of interactions – conversations between various parties endeavoring to fulfill a business purpose or mission. A system implementation may be an orchestration, collaboration, or choreography
Collaborations are sets of specified behavior that serve some particular business need. They embody some of the semantics of a given business process, but in the context of the Behavioral Framework, may explicitly depend on and support the integration semantics embodied in Service Role specifications. / Which definitions do you prefer? I like the first one better. KS
BF
commissioning agent / Party requesting a service or an action.
Common Message Element Type (CMET) / A message type in a Hierarchical Message Description (HMD) that MAY be included by reference in other HMDs. / HL7 Glossary
compatibility / A relationshipRelationships between two or more conformance statements that involve two or more specification stack (SS) instances. The relationship identifies whether two or more implementations certified as conformant to the specification stack instances can achieve Working Interoperability without further transformations. If so, the two SS instances and associated implementations are called compatible.
The ability of a device or system to work with another device or system without modification. [IBM] / The 1st definition is from the ECCF. Which definition do you prefer?
complex system / A system composed of interconnected parts that as a whole exhibit one or more properties (behavior among the possible properties) not obvious from the properties of the individual parts.[1] / http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_system
compliance / The target artifact is compliant with the source artifact if and only if all conformant implementations of the target are also conformant with the source. [From RM-ODP standard].
Reviewers: Do you have a preference as to whether we use the RM-ODP or ECCF definition for compliance? KS
One standard or specification is compliant with another standard or specification if all propositions true in the initial standard are also true in the complying standard.
The term compliance is also used to state expectations as to how certain specifications need to satisfy possible legislative or regulatory constraints or requirements.[From ECCF] / RM-ODP
ECCF
compliance assessment / A process that results in a single descriptor – a compliance level -- applied to a specific application, tool, service, or infrastructure component in an Enterprise Architecture Specification (EAS). Compliance is a function of:
• A set of static conformance statements collected as a conformance specification; and
• An accompanying set of dynamic processes that define the responsibilities and activities involved in performing conformance measurements. / ECCF and from 9/10 list
compliance level / A classification of the degree of compatibility of a given application, tool, service, and infrastructure component to a conformance specification. Compatibility levels establish categories of compatibility, which reflect requirements for semantic interoperability both internally, as well as with other organizations. / ECCF and From 9/10 list
compliance validation / An activity by which a third party gives written assurance that a product (including process and service) fulfills specified requirements. Also means “compliance certification.”
Note: SAIF does not use the term compliance certification; instead, it uses compliance validation, as discussed in the "ISO Terminology: Conformance and Compliance" and "Compliance Validation" topics. / Ref: ECCF
We need a better definition for compliance validation. KS
Computable Semantic Interoperability / See “Semantic interoperability.” / Put in link to Charlie’s two papers on subject. – clt Can you provide the link? I will later, clt
Computation- Independent Model or
Constrained Information Model (CIM) / Often referred to as a business or domain model because it uses a vocabulary that is familiar to the subject matter experts (SMEs). The CIM presents exactly what the system is expected to do, but hides all information technology related specifications to remain independent of how that system will be (or currently is) implemented.
The CIM plays an important role in bridging the gap, which typically exists between these domain experts and the information technologists responsible for implementing the system.
In an MDA specification, the CIM requirements should be traceable to the PIM and PSM constructs that implement them (and vice-versa).
Constrained Information Model – see “Names of HL7 constraint models.” / http://www.omg.org/mda/mda_files/Cephas_MDA_Fast_Guide.pdf
Is “Computation-Independent” or “ComputationALLY Independent” the correct spelling? I’ve seen it spelled both ways. KGS
conformance / A specific implementation of a specification irrespective of whether or not the specification is a ”standard.” Conformance is a quantitative assessment of how completely and accurately a given implementation fulfills the requirements stated in the specification. Conformance is evaluated at specific points in the implementation. Conformance points are identified in the specification-of-interest. Evaluation is a Boolean statement, that is, it is either true or false. / ECCF
conformance assertion / A testable, verifiable statement made in the context of a single RM-ODP viewpoint.
A statement that is made against technology that must be tested to be validated. / 9/10 doc
conformance level / The different impacts achieved by implementation conformance, depending on how specific that the underlying rules are.
The ECCF does not define specific levels other than as related to the row of the specification stack. The bulk of the HL7 v2.8 document specifies the conformance levels as related to how specific the rules are in the context of HL7 V2 profiles. / Ref: ECCF
conformance measurement / A binary-valued variable that reports whether a particular technology binding’s implementation of an application, tool, service, and infrastructure component satisfies a particular conformance statement. For example, is conformant or non-conformant based on one or metrics defined by the conformance statement as being essential for conformance to the assertion. / From 9/10 list
conformance points / Evaluation of conformance at specific points in the implementation or specification. See Conformance. / Ref: ECCF
conformance specification / A collection of conformance statements made in the context of an Enterprise Architecture Specification (EAS). / From 9/10 list
conformance statement / Conformance denotes the validity of a given software component relative to a stated set of requirements. It confirms the correctness of a specific implementation or technology binding of a specific specification stack (SS) instance. The specification must express its requirements in the form of conformance statements. A specific implementation then makes pair-wise conformance assertions that may be evaluated—either through human or (preferably) automated testing—to be true or false. Also see Conformance and Conformance points. / Ref: ECCF and from 9/10 list