Presentation by David Eddy to SIKM Leaders Community on January 21, 2020

1. © 2020, Map Hill Systems, Inc.
Top Down
Meets
Bottom Up
1
!
Alchemy of
Data Elements

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The Period Table

3. !3© 2020, Map Hill Systems, Inc.
A Communications Opportunity
• Source: Whitemarsh Information Systems (www.wiscorp.com)
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Small System Network

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What is a “data element?”
• column
• field
• attribute
• property
• tuple
• cell
• Regardless of the LABEL, data elements are the “atomic” building blocks of
information systems.
• We have not paid enough attention to data elements. Their definitions and
handling are typically left to low level tasks, far removed from business
understanding.
• characteristics

7. DATA STRUCTURE contains DATA ELEMENTS
ENTERPRISE contains SYSTEMS
SYSTEM contains PROGRAMS
PROGRAM contains DATA STRUCTURES
LOGIC
LINKS [to other programs]
DATA ELEMENT contains RULES.
!7© 2020, Map Hill Systems, Inc.
Data Dictionary
(aka Metadata Repository)
Structure

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Core Thesis
H2O = {water, ice, snow, rain, hail, sleet, fog, clouds, …}
number = {no, num, nm, nbr, nmbr, nmr, #, …}

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How Data Elements Read
Which Statement is Correct?
a = b + c
a = b * c
or
weeklyPay = hoursWkd + payRate
weeklyPay = hoursWkd * payRate

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XML to the rescue… NOT!
• Despite XML’s popularity, it actually makes the data element problem worse.
<PARTNUMBER> 123-45-67890 </PARTNUMBER>
<PartNumber> 123-45-67890 </PartNumber>
<partNumber> 123-45-67890 </partNumber>
<partnumber> 123-45-67890 </partnumber>
• Are four different XML elements.
• Labels in XML are case-sensitive. Ouch!

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What is to Be Done?
socSecID
taxpayer
identifier
Data Element Mapping
SSN
TIN
TID
EID
social_security_number
SOC-SEC-NO
SIN
EIN

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References
• TDAN article https://tdan.com/semantics-in-metadata-repository-and-systems-integration-efforts/6123
• Whitemarsh https://www.wiscorp.com/
• Semantic Arts / Gist https://www.semanticarts.com/
• Protégé https://protege.stanford.edu/
• Ambiguous Words https://www.kurzweilai.net/ambiguous-words
• Google behind the firewall: http://www.legacysoftware.co.uk
• THE Bible of un-natural language: www.acronymfinder.com
• An Emergent Theory of Digital Library Metadata: Enrich then Filter, Getaneh Alemu & Brett Stevens.
• Take Control books https://www.takecontrolbooks.com/
◦ Your Digital Legacy https://www.takecontrolbooks.com/digital-legacy/
◦ Your Productivity https://www.takecontrolbooks.com/productivity/
• David Hay’s Achieving Buzzword Compliance
• DAMA https://dama.org DMBoK (Data Management Body of Knowledge) ISBN: 978-1634622349
• WordNet https://wordnet.princeton.edu/
• Visual Thesaurus https://www.visualthesaurus.com/
• Wikipedia metadata page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metadata
• Zip Code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Metadata/Archive_1#ZIP_Code:_new_example_please
• DBMS engines (334 as of 2020-01-03)
https://www.db-engines.com/en/rankings
Click on “DB-Engines Rankings” tab to get to list of DBMSs
• Craig Murphy & JoAnne Yates: Engineering Rules: Global Standard Setting since 1880

13. © 2020, Map Hill Systems, Inc. !13
Thank you.
David Eddy
deddy@davideddy.com
781-455-0949