Number: 2006-012-1-700
Title: Securing and structural updating of information in
the NPU coding system and its environment
Task Group
Chairman: Ulla Magdal
Petersen
Members: Ivan
Bruunshuus, Daniel
Karlsson, and Françoise
Pontet
Objective:
To extract, analyse and preserve less accessible information produced
during the first decade of development of the IFCC-IUPAC coding system,
and specify the needs for information management in the future.To
produce a manual describing how the basic principles of the coding
system are implemented in actual coding practise.
Description:
Work under C-NPU defining and coding properties in laboratory
science has been going on since the mid-nineties. The database structure
designed in the nineties was intended mainly to support the actual
coding process (assembly of elements into coded properties), and the
production of text files with specific fonts and formatting, intended
for paper based publication.
Terminological information about the elements, their sources and
their uses in coded properties has been stored, but frequently in
an implicit manner, as part of other information elements, rather
than explicitly in the database.
During almost a decade of coding work, principles and rules for the
coding practise have crystallised, but have not been systematically
filed. They may be extracted from stored material, like advice to
users at laboratories, newsletters retiring 'malformed' codes etc.,
or they may be present as 'silent information' in the coding environment
- i.e. in the minds of the people working with the system.
A review of the information present in the system and its environment
is suggested, aiming to analyse and extract implicitly stored data
and register 'silent knowledge'. The objective is to preserve the
information, to render it accessible for future developers and users,
and to specify the needs for structured information management in
the future.
Progress: