1 Scope

This part of ISO/IEC 11179 provides instruction for naming and identification of the following administered items: data element concept, conceptual domain, data element, and value domain. It describes the parts and structure of identification. Identification is narrowly defined to encompass only the means to establish unique identification of these administered items within a register. It describes naming in an MDR; includes principles and rules by which naming conventions can be developed; and describes example naming conventions. The naming principles and rules described herein apply primarily to names of data element concepts, conceptual domains, data elements, and value domains. When "administered item" is used in this part of ISO/IEC 11179, it is understood to refer specifically to these four items. This part of ISO/IEC 11179 should be used in conjunction with those that establish rules and procedures for attributing, classifying, defining, and registering administered items.

In Annex A, all of the examples are given with English terminologies. However, there is an intention that those rules be effective in other national languages, even in those languages that use ideographs such as Japanese, Chinese, or Korean, when the terminologies used in the name are controlled properly. Annex B contains a version of the rules for Asian languages.

It is out of scope of the naming rules to establish semantic equivalence of the naming among different languages. Naming must be supplemented by other methods such as ontologies or controlled vocabularies in establishing semantic equivalence.