Desirable Characteristics of Information Resource Dictionary Systems

It is now widely accepted that an organization’s information is one of its most valuable resources. The management of this resource, especially the organization’s computerized data bases, has become a critical function for its continued survival and viability. Data administration is the function that assists the organization in the management and control of data. This role has therefore achieved strategic importance in many organizations. Over the last few decades several concepts, tools and techniques have evolved to enable the data administrator to fulfill this role, culminating in the development of an automated facility called the Information Resource Dictionary System (IRDS), also commonly referred to as the Repository, or the Encyclopedia (Bruce et al., 1989). The IRDS incorporates a centralized “repository” of information about data relevant to the organization. The repository is an administrative database that allows storage and management of all the database and related information system definitions, referred to as metadata. It contains the attributes, domains, definitions, usage and relationships of the data in an organization. The central repository establishes a single source of metadata to be shared and reused by various users and tools throughout the lifecycle of an application or information system. It reduces or eliminates duplication of effort in creating and managing shared data. Furthermore, it promotes and enforces consistent definitions across interrelated application areas. These capabilities are required in order to provide all database users with the precise meaning of data, their availability and location, means of data storage, maintenance and usage, and information on who controls access to the data. IRDS technology has evolved rapidly over the last several years, with a proliferation of commercial products. As a result, both the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) began to work on data dictionary standards in the early 1980s, to promote compatibility among metadatabase management software implementations. They named this software “Information Resource Dictionary Systems,” and formulated a set of standards (X3.138) in 1988 (ANSI, 1988), which were extended in 1992 (ANSI, 1992). Apart from the Desirable Characteristics of Information Resource Dictionary Systems