ISO/IEC 15944-7:2009

INTERNATIONAL ISO/IEC
STANDARD 15944-7
First edition
2009-12-01


Information technology — Business
Operational View —
Part 7:
eBusiness vocabulary
Technologies de l'information — Vue opérationnelle d'affaires —
Partie 7: Vocabulaire e-affaires




Reference number
ISO/IEC 15944-7:2009(E)
©
ISO/IEC 2009

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ISO/IEC 15944-7:2009(E)
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ISO/IEC 15944-7:2009(E)
Contents Page
Foreword. v
0 Introduction. vi
1 Scope. 1
1.1 Statement of scope. 1
1.2 Exclusions. 1
1.3 Aspects not currently addressed. 1
1.4 IT systems environment neutrality . 2
2 Normative references. 2
3 Terms and definitions. 3
4 Abbreviations . 5
5 Fundamental Principles and Rules. 5
5.1 Introduction . 5
5.2 Principles and rules for the development of a definition for a concept and assignment of
an appropriate term in a “controlled vocabulary”. 6
5.3 Essential elements of an entry in the controlled vocabulary. 7
5.3.1 Rules governing the development of a definition for a concept . 8
5.3.2 Rules governing the assignment of a term to a concept. 12
5.3.3 Rules governing the assignment of an abbreviation (or acronym) for a concept . 14
5.3.4 Rules governing the specification of the gender of a term. 14
5.3.5 Rules for ensuring a unique composite identifier for each concept and its definition. 15
5.3.6 Rules governing the assignment of an internal eBusiness vocabulary identifier. 16
5.4 Rules governing maximization and harmonization of equal or similar concepts in different
standards. 17
6 Rules governing development of multilingual equivalents for eBusiness vocabulary
entries . 18
6.1 Introduction . 18
6.2 Rules applicable to Jurisdictional Domains which are ISO/IEC JTC 1, ISO, IEC and/or ITU
P-Members. 19
6.3 Rules applicable to Jurisdictional Domains which either are not (1) ISO/IEC JTC 1, ISO,
IEC and/or ITU P-members; or either categories. 19
6.4 Establishing and developing HIEs for definitions of concepts and their assigned terms as
well as abbreviations. 20
7 Rules governing the structure and presentation of the eBusiness vocabulary in a HIE
context as additional Annexes to this part of ISO/IEC 15944 . 21
8 RULES GOVERNING THE MAINTENANCE OF THE eBUSINESS VOCABULARY IN A HIE
CONTEXT. 23
8.1 Introduction . 23
8.2 eBusiness vocabulary Repository. 24
8.3 Rules governing the representation and referencing of the internal eBusiness vocabulary
identifiers. 24
8.4 Rules governing the maintenance of individual entries in the eBusiness vocabulary. 24
9 List of Annexes. 25
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ISO/IEC 15944-7:2009(E)
Annex A (normative) Consolidated list of normative references for the eBusiness vocabulary. 26
Annex B (normative) Consolidated list of abbreviations . 30
Annex C (normative) Consolidated summary list of eBusiness vocabulary entries by source
referenced. 33
Annex D (normative) Consolidated eBusiness vocabulary: ISO English and ISO French. 49
Annex E (normative) Consolidated eBusiness vocabulary: ISO English and ISO Russian . 132
Annex F (normative)  Consolidated eBusiness vocabulary: ISO English and ISO Chinese . 228
Annex G (normative)  Rules governing addition of HIE eBusiness vocabularies in other
languages. 308
Bibliography . 310

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ISO/IEC 15944-7:2009(E)
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.
International Standards are drafted in accordance with the rules given in the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2.
The main task of the joint technical committee is to prepare International Standards. Draft International
Standards adopted by the joint technical committee are circulated to national bodies for voting. Publication as
an International Standard requires approval by at least 75 % of the national bodies casting a vote.
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.
ISO/IEC 15944-7 was prepared by Joint Technical Committee ISO/IEC JTC 1, Information technology,
Subcommittee SC 32, Data management and interchange.
ISO/IEC 15944 consists of the following parts, under the general title Information technology — Business
Operational View:
⎯ Part 1: Operational aspects of Open-edi for implementation
⎯ Part 2: Registration of scenarios and their components as business objects
⎯ Part 4: Business transaction scenarios — Accounting and economic ontology
⎯ Part 5: Identification and referencing of requirements of jurisdictional domains as sources of external
constraints
⎯ Part 6: Technical introduction to e-Business modelling [Technical Report]
⎯ Part 7: eBusiness vocabulary
When future parts of ISO/IEC 15944 are completed, terms and definitions for added concepts will be
integrated into this part of ISO/IEC 15944, either via an amendment or in the next edition.
The following parts are under preparation:
⎯ Part 3: Open-edi description techniques (OeDTs)
⎯ Part 8: Identification of privacy requirements as external constraints on business transactions

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ISO/IEC 15944-7:2009(E)
0 Introduction
0.1 Purpose and overview
ISO/IEC 15944 focuses on the many requirements of the business operational view aspects of Open-edi in
1
support of electronic business transactions . These requirements need to be integrated and taken into
account in the development of business semantic descriptive techniques for modelling eBusiness transactions
and components thereof as re-useable business objects. They include:
a) commercial frameworks and associated requirements;
b) legal frameworks and associated requirements;
c) public policy requirements, particularly those of a generic nature such as consumer protection, privacy,
accommodation of handicapped/disabled persons;
d) requirements arising from the need to support cultural adaptability. These include meeting localization
and multilingual requirements (e.g. as might be required by a particular jurisdictional domain or as desired
to provide goods, a service and/or right in a particular market). In the context of making commitments, this
requires the ability to distinguish, in the development of specification of scenarios, scenario components,
and their semantics, between:
1) the use of unique, unambiguous and linguistically neutral identifiers (often as composite identifiers) at
the information technology (IT) interface level among the IT systems of participating parties on the
one hand; and, on the other,
2) their multiple human interface equivalent (HIE) expressions in a representation form appropriate to
the Persons involved in making the resulting commitments.
One of these requirements is to have explicitly stated rules and especially clear, unambiguous and complete
definitions (and their associated “terms”) of concepts essential to support BOV requirements. This is because
these definitions in support of eBusiness requirements are crucial to a harmonized approach and one which is
to be used in the making of commitments among parties to a business transaction.
A key purpose therefore of this part of ISO/IEC 15944 is to present, in a single document, a consolidated set
of all the eBusiness terms and definitions found in:
⎯ ISO/IEC 14662, Information technology — Open edi reference model, and
⎯ all parts of ISO/IEC 15944.
Another purpose of this part of ISO/IEC 15944 is to support and facilitate an IT-enabled approach to the
creation and maintenance of human interface equivalents (HIEs) for all the eBusiness terms and definitions in
multiple languages of jurisdictional domains (and especially those of ISO P-members).

1
 See 0.1.2 and Figure 3 in ISO/IEC 15944-1:2002 for the various sources of requirements on the business operational
view (BOV) aspects of Open-edi which need to be integrated and/or taken into account in ISO/IEC 15944.
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ISO/IEC 15944-7:2009(E)
0.2 Use of “Person”, “organization” and “party” in the context of business transaction and
commitment exchange
In electronic business transactions, whether undertaken on a for-profit or not-for-profit basis, the key element
of any type of business transaction is commitment exchange among Persons made among their Decision
2
Making Applications (DMAs) of the Information Technology Systems (IT Systems) acting on behalf of
3
“Persons”. “Persons” are the only entities able to make commitments . Quoting from ISO/IEC 15944-1:2002,
0.4:
“When the ISO/IEC 14662 Open-edi Reference Model standard was being developed, the “Internet” and
“WWW” were an embryonic stage and their impact on private and public sector organizations was not fully
understood. The Business Operational View (BOV) was therefore initially defined as:
a perspective of business transactions limited to those aspects regarding the making of business
decisions and commitments among organizations which are needed for the description of a business
transaction”.
The existing and widely-used ISO/IEC 6523 definition of “organization” was used in the first edition of
ISO/IEC 14662. The fact that today Open-edi through the Internet and WWW also involves “individuals” has
now been taken into account in the current editions of both ISO/IEC 14662 and all parts of ISO/IEC 15944.
(ISO/IEC 14662:1997 did not define “commitment”, nor the discrete properties and behaviours an entity must
have to be capable of making a “commitment” as well as bridging legal and IT perspectives in the
dematerialized world of the Internet.)
During the development of ISO/IEC 15944-1, the term “commitment” was defined. At the same time it was
recognized that in order to be able to make a commitment, the term “Open-edi Party” was not specific enough
to satisfy scenario specifications when the legal aspects of commitment were considered. In many instances
commitments were noted as being actually among IT systems acting under the direction of those legally
capable of making commitment, rather than the individuals in their own capacities. It was also recognized that
in some jurisdictions a commitment could be made by “artificial” persons such as corporate bodies. Finally, it
was recognized that there are occasions where agents act, either under the instruction of a principal, or as a
result of requirement(s) laid down by a jurisdiction, or where an individual is prevented by a relevant
jurisdiction from being able to make a commitment.
To address these extended requirements, an additional concept and term of “Person” was defined. The
construct of Person has been defined in such a way that it is capable of having the potential legal and
regulatory constraints applied to it.
There are three broad categories, i.e. sub-types, of Persons as players in Open-edi, namely (1) the Person as
“individual”, (2) the Person as “organization”, and (3) the Person as “public administration”. There are also
three basic (or primitive) roles of Persons in business transactions, namely “buyer”, “seller”, and “regulator”.
In modelling business transactions, jurisdictional domains prescribe their external constraints in the role of
“regulator” and execute them as “public administration” (See 5.4 in ISO/IEC 15944-1:2002).
Very often the requirements of jurisdictional domains are specified through the use of sets of “Codes
representing X.”. These sets of codes are created and maintained by Source Authorities via a rulebase with
a resulting coded domain(s) in the form of a data element(s) whose permitted values represent predefined
semantics and are in a structured form, i.e. as a type of semantic component. As such, jurisdictional domains
serve as Source Authorities for coded domains.
These three sub-types of Persons are also the possible Source Authorities for coded domains. On the whole,
Source Authorities for coded domains are either “organizations” or “public administrations”.

2
 See ISO/IEC 14662:2004, 5.2.
3
 The text in this section is based on existing text in 0.3 in ISO/IEC 15944-1:2002 and ISO/IEC 14662:2004.
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ISO/IEC 15944-7:2009(E)
In this part of ISO/IEC 15944,
⎯ the use of Person with a capital “P” represents Person as a defined term, i.e. as the entity within an
Open-edi Party that carries the legal responsibility for making commitment(s);
⎯ “individual”, “organization”, and “public administration” are defined terms representing the three common
sub-types of “Person”; and,
⎯ the words “person(s)” and/or “party(ies)” are used in their generic contexts independent of roles of
“Person” as defined in ISO/IEC 14662:2004 and ISO/IEC 15944-1. A “party” to a business transaction has
the properties and behaviours of a “Person”.
4
0.3 Importance and role of terms and definitions
An essential element of any standard is that of having clearly and explicitly stated definitions for the concepts
which it uses or introduces. Definitions capture the key concepts of a standard and form the essential
foundation for any standard. As such, it is important that definitions be explicit, unambiguous and precise with
respect to the semantics conveyed. At times, in order to ensure that the concept being defined is not confused
with other related concepts (or words that have common or possible different meanings), International
Standards introduce, i.e. “invent”, new terms as labels for these concepts. This is also because the use of
“synonyms” is not allowed in definitions in International Standards. The same approach has been taken in
ISO/IEC 15944. See 5.3.2, 5.4, Clause 6 and Clause 7.
The ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2 provide for “Terms and definitions” as a “Technical normative element”,
necessary for the understanding of certain terms used in the document. A primary reason for having “Terms
and definitions” in a standard is because one cannot assume that there exists a common understanding,
worldwide, for a specific concept. And even if one assumes that such an understanding exists, then having
such a common definition in Clause 3 serves to formally and explicitly affirm (or re-affirm) such a common
understanding, i.e. ensure that all parties concerned share this common understanding as stated through the
text of the definitions of these concepts in Clause 3.
A primary objective of ISO/IEC 15944 is to ensure that there is a common understanding of the Business
Operational View (BOV) from commercial, legal, ITC, public policy and cross-sectoral perspectives. It is
therefore very important to ascertain and confirm that which may be considered a “common understanding” in
one of these domains is also unambiguously understood and accepted in the others.
This subclause is concluded by:
1) noting that the “definition” of the concept “definition” is “representation of a concept by a descriptive
statement which serves to differentiate it from related concepts” [ISO 1087-1:2000 (3.3.1)];
2) noting that an essential characteristic of eBusiness standards is that they involve and support the making
of (legally recognized) “commitments” among two or more autonomous Persons. This requires not only a
“common understanding” among all the parties involved but also is one which is as unambiguous as
possible, especially where such business transactions are executed via Open-edi based IT systems; and,
3) stating that a very effective and practical approach to supporting the requirements noted in 1) and 2)
above, is to develop and provide bilingual/multilingual equivalencies of the definition of a concept (and its
associated label or “term”) in two or more languages. A primary reason here is that establishing an
equivalency of the definition of a concept in another language from the “source language” uncovers
“hidden ambiguities” in the source language. Often, it is in the preparation of an HIE for the definition (and
its associated term) that ambiguities, i.e. in the semantics, from one language into one or more other
languages are discovered. At times, this results in the need to improve the text of the definition of the
concept in the source language. Alternatively, such development of one or more HIEs of the definition of

4
 This subclause is included in each part of ISO/IEC 15944 to emphasize that harmonized terms and definitions are
essential to the understanding and continuity of ISO/IEC 15944.
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ISO/IEC 15944-7:2009(E)
a concept can result in the addition of a clarifying “Note(s)” or “Example(s)” in both the source language
5
and its HIEs .
6
0.4 Standard based on rules and guidelines
This part of ISO/IEC 15944 is intended to be used within and outside of the ISO and IEC by diverse sets of
users having different perspectives and needs. (See Figure 3 “Sources of Requirements on the Business
Operational View (BOV)” in Clause 0.2 in Part 1 of ISO/IEC 15944.)
7
ISO states that a standard is a:
8
“documented agreement containing technical specifications or other precise criteria to be used consistently
as rules, guidelines, or definitions of characteristics, to ensure that materials, products, processes and
services are fit for their purpose.”
This Business Operational View (BOV) standard focuses on “other precise criteria to be used consistently as
rules, guidelines, or definitions of characteristics, to ensure that materials, products, processes and services
are fit for their purpose”.
As stated in the Open-edi Reference Model and re-emphasized in ISO/IEC 15944-1, Open-edi is based on
rules which are predefined and mutually agreed upon. They are of a precise criteria and are agreed upon
requirements of business transactions representing common business operational practices and functional
requirements.
Clause 5 “Characteristics of Open-edi” in ISO/IEC 15944-1:2002 makes it clear that the “Business Operational
9
View (BOV)” type of Open-edi standards are “rule-based” standards . Of particular relevance here is the first
key characteristic of Open-edi as stated in 5.1 “Actions based upon following clear, predefined rules”. It is
useful to quote some key normative text of ISO/IEC 15944-1 so that users of this part of ISO/IEC 15944 have
a clear understanding of the nature and purpose of ISO/IEC 15944.
“Open-edi requires the use of clear and predefined rules, principles and guidelines. These rules formally
specify the role(s) of the parties involved in Open-edi and the available expected behaviour(s) of the
parties as seen by other parties engaging in Open-edi. Open-edi rules are applied to:
⎯ the content of information flows; and
⎯ the order and behaviour of information flows themselves.

5
 For the normative elements here, see 5.3 “Essential elements of an entry in the controlled vocabulary”; and, in particular,
5.3.1 “Rules governing the development of a definition for a concept”.
6
 This introductory clause is primarily based on text found in ISO/IEC 15944-1:2002, 6.1.2.
7
 This is the generic definition of “standard” of the ISO and IEC (and stated in the ISO/IEC JTC 1 Directives,
Part 2.5:1998), in turn based on ISO Guide 2:1996 (1.7). This definition for “standard” is used consistently in the
development of all parts of this International Standard.
8
 One can interpret "agreement" in a variety of ways. The ISO/IEC Guide 2, 1996, 1.7 uses the term "consensus", which
need not imply unanimity but rather “absence of sustained opposition to substantial issues.”
9
 There are six key characteristics of Open-edi (as stated in ISO/IEC 15944-1:2002, Clause 5):
- actions are based on following predefined rules;
- there is commitment of the parties involved;
- communications among parties are automated;
- parties control and maintain their states;
- parties act autonomously; and,
- multiple transactions can be supported.
The six subclauses of Clause 5 in ISO/IEC 15944-1:2002 describe each of these six characteristics in more detail.
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ISO/IEC 15944-7:2009(E)
The combination of both of these provides a complete definition of the relationships among the parties
since it requires them to achieve a common semantic understanding of the information exchanged. They
must also have consistent generic procedural views on their interaction. Therefore, rule sets have to be
agreed in advance and captured in Open-edi scenarios. This is a major component of the agreement
required among parties.”
These rules also serve as a common set of understanding bridging the varied perspectives of the commercial
10
framework, the legal framework, the information technology framework, standardizers, consumers, etc.
In this part of ISO/IEC 15944, the common rules are sequentially enumerated and presented in bold font.
Where guidelines are provided for a rule, they are numbered sequentially after that rule and are shown in an
11
italic font . Choice of words in the rules, the guidelines and the terms and definitions are governed by
maximizing the ability to map, on the one hand, to all the sources of requirements of the day-to-day world of
commitment pertaining to the Business Operational View (BOV) of any eBusiness transaction (e.g.
commercial, legal, public policy, cultural adaptability, sectoral, etc., frameworks of the day-to-day world of
business) and, on the other hand, those pertaining to the Functional Services View (FSV) in support of BOV
requirements (e.g. that of those providing information technology and communication services in support of
commitment exchange of any kind and among all parties involved in a business transaction).
0.5 Use of “identifier” as “identifier (in business transactions)”
ISO/IEC 15944-1:2002, 6.1.4, focuses on the requirement for the unambiguous identification of entities in
business transactions. “Unambiguous” is a key issue in business transactions because states of ambiguity
and uncertainty are not desired from commercial, legal, consumer and information technology perspectives.
Issues of unambiguousness apply to all aspects of a business transaction and even more so to those which
are EDI-based.
A key objective of ISO/IEC 15944 is to serve as a methodology and tool for the specification and
unambiguous identification of Open-edi scenarios, scenario attributes and scenario components as re-useable
elements, i.e. as re-useable business objects, in support of common business transactions. These and related
objectives of interoperability and re-usability of Open-edi scenarios and scenario components for business
transactions require their unambiguous identification.
ISO/IEC 15944-1:2002 defined “unambiguous” as:
unambiguous: the level of certainty and explicitness required in the completeness of the
semantics of the recorded information interchanged appropriate to the goal of a business
transaction. [ISO/IEC 15944-1:2002 (3.66)]
and “identifier (in business transaction)” as:
identifier (in business transaction): an unambiguous, unique and a linguistically neutral value,
...