Update 2005-01-31: XML Naming and Design Rules Specifications Published by OASIS, UN/CEFACT, and Navy CIO. Three closely aligned specifications governing XML naming and design rules have been approved for public release. The NDRs build upon the methodolgy and syntax-neutral object model specified in the Core Component Technical Specification (CCTS). The documents are aimed at optimizing semantic interoperability, modularity, extensibility, maintainability, and data element re-use through best-practice design of business components using W3C XML Schema constructs.

[August 25, 2004] The Applied Technologies Group (ATG) of the United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT) has announced the release of a UN/CEFACT XML Naming and Design Rules (NDR) specification for public review.

The UN/CEFACT — XML Naming and Design Rules "describes and specifies the rules and guidelines that will be applied by UN/CEFACT when developing XML schema specifications. It provides a way to identify, capture and maximize the re-use of business information expressed as XML schema components to support and enhance information interoperability across multiple business situations."

According to the design goals, the XML Naming and Design Rules specification "can be employed wherever business information is being shared or exchanged amongst and between enterprises, governmental agencies, and/or other organisations in an open and worldwide environment using the XML schema language for defining the content of the information exchange. This specification will form the basis for standards development work of technical experts developing XML schema specifications based on information models developed in accordance with the UN/CEFACT — Core Components Technical Specification — Part 8 of the ebXML Technical Framework (ISO 15000-5 Candidate)."

Included in this specification is a "normative schema for the XML expression of ebXML Core Component Types (CCTs) and Unqualified Data Types (UDTs). These two schemas can be used by anyone interested in fostering international standardization of the use of ebXML core components."

Mark Crawford (Project Team Leader) has provided an introduction to the NDR document, reminding readers that "under the Open Development Process, all interested parties have the opportunity to review, comment on, and contribute to UN/CEFACT's technical specifications. This is a critical step in the Process. Comments from the public constitute valuable technical input and enable ATG to improve the specification before it becomes a UN/CEFACT standard."

The NDR document has been developed "in accordance with the UN/CEFACT/TRADE/22 Open Development Process (ODP) for Technical Specifications and has been approved by the United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT) Applied Techniques Group (ATG) for promulgation for public review in accordance with Step 5 of the ODP."

The XML Naming and Design Rules "were developed in close coordination with other XML standards efforts. In particular, the OASIS Universal Business Language Technical Committee Naming and Design Rules were instrumental in developing this document. Additionally, contributions were received from SWIFT, U.S. Department of the Navy, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Federal CIO Council XML Working Group, OpenTravel Alliance, Australia Electricity & Gas Industry, CIDX, EAN/UCC, European Transmission System Operators, and PIDX."

Bibliographic Information

UN/CEFACT — XML Naming and Design Rules for Core Components. UN/CEFACT. [Review] Draft 1.0. 3-August-2004. 126 pages. Project Team Leader: Mark Crawford (LMI). Editors: Gunther Stuhec (SAP), Paula Heilig (Worldspan), and Margaret Pemberton (Diskray). Contributors: Hisanao Sugamata (ECOM-Japan), Frank Lin (GCOM), K.K. Suen (EAN Hong Kong), Luc Mouchot (CNAM-TS), Thomas Bikeev (EAN.UCC), Jostein Frxmyr (EDISYS), and Sue Probert (SEPIA eb).

"This UN/CEFACT — XML Naming and Design Rules has been developed in accordance with the UN/CEFACT/TRADE/22 Open Development Process (ODP) for Technical Specifications. It has been approved by the United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT) Applied Techniques Group (ATG) for promulgation for public review in accordance with Step 5 of the ODP. Distribution of this document is unlimited. The document formatting is based on the Internet Society's Standard RFC format."

Overview: XML Naming and Design Rules for Core Components

Audiences: The primary audience for this UN/CEFACT — XML Naming and Design Rules are member of the UN/CEFACT Applied Technologies Group, working group on XML who are responsible for development and maintenance of the UN/CEFACT XML schema specifications and the wider membership of the other UN/CEFACT Groups who will participate in the process of creating and maintaining the UN/CEFACT XML schema specifications. Additional audiences are designers of tools who need to specify the conversion of user input in the tool into the XML schema representation adhering to the roles defined in this document as well as designers of XML schema specifications outside of the UN/CEFACT Forum community.

Specification Structure: These UN/CEFACT — XML Naming and Design Rules have been divided in to five (5) main sections:

• Section 1 provides general information about the document itself
• Section 2 provides information on the guiding principles applied in developing this specification as well as its dependency and relationship to the UN/CEFACT — Core Components Technical Specification. Furthermore, this section describes the approach taken to modularity in order to maximize the re-use of business information expressed as XML schema components and the general naming conventions applied.
• Section 3 provides the general conventions applied with respect to the use of the XML schema language
• Section 4 provides detailed rules applicable to each of the schema modules defined by the modularity approach
• Section 5 provides guidelines and rules related to XML instance documents

Guiding Principles: The following guiding principles were used as the basis for all design rules contained in this document

• Relationship to UMM — UN/CEFACT XML Schemas will be based on UMM metamodel adherant Business Process Models
• Relationship to Information Models — UN/CEFACT XML Schemas will be based on UML-based Information Models
• Schema Creation — UN/CEFACT XML design rules will support schema creation through handcrafting as well as automatic generation from UML profiled objects and XML profiled objects
• ebXML Use — UN/CEFACT XML Schemas and instance documents shall be straightforwardly usable within the ebXML framework and compatable with other frameworks to the maximum extent practicable
• Interchange and Application Use — UN/CEFACT XML Schemas and instance documents are intended for business-to-business and application-to-application use
• Tool Use and Support — The design of UN/CEFACT XML Schemas will not make any assumptions about sophisticated tools for creation, management, storage, or presentation being available
• Time Constraints —Urgency is a key item in the development of UN/CEFACT XML design rules
• Legibility — UN/CEFACT XML instance documents should be intuitive and reasonably clear in the context for which they are designed
• Schema Features — The design of UN/CEFACT XML Schemas should use the most commonly supported features of W3C XSD Schema
• Technical Specifications — UN/CEFACT XML design rules will be based on Technical Specifications holding the equivalent of W3C recommended status
• Schema Specification — UN/CEFACT XML design rules will be fully conformant with W3C XML Schema Definition Language.
• Interoperability — The number of ways to express the same information in a UN/CEFACT XML Schema and UN/CEFACT XML instance document is to be kept as close to one as possible
• Customization — The design of UN/CEFACT XML Schemas must facilitate customization
• Maintenance — The design of UN/CEFACT XML Schemas must facilitate maintenance
• Context Sensitivity — The design of UN/CEFACT XML Schemas must ensure that context-sensitive document types aren't precluded
• Relationship to Other Namespaces — UN/CEFACT XML design rules will be cautious about making dependencies on other namespaces
• Legacy formats — UN/CEFACT XML design rules are not responsible for sustaining legacy formats
• Messages must express semantics fully in schemas and not rely on well-formedness

Related Technical Work: UBL Naming and Design Rules

The OASIS Universal Business Language Technical Committee has dedicated a significant work effort to the naming and design rules for the UBL architecture. This technology is reviewable as a work in progress (nearly complete) in the following snapshots:

• Universal Business Language (UBL) Naming and Design Rules. 26-August-2004. 100 pages. Candidate Committee Draft. Document identifier: 'wd-ublndrsc-ndrdoc-V1pt0 Candidate Committee Draft'. Naming and Design Rules Subcommittee Co-chairs: Mavis Cournane (Cognitran Ltd), Mark Crawford (LMI, Lead Editor), and Lisa Seaburg (Aeon LLC). Contributors: Bill Burcham (Sterling Commerce), Fabrice Desré (France Telecom), Matt Gertner (Schemantix), Jessica Glace (LMI), Arofan Gregory (Aeon LLC), Michael Grimley (US Navy), Eduardo Gutentag (Sun Microsystems), Sue Probert (CommerceOne), Gunther Stuhec (SAP), Paul Thorpe (OSS Nokalva), Jim Wilson (CIDX). [source .PDF from the UBL list]

  "This specification documents the naming and design rules and guidelines for the construction of XML components from ebXML Core Components. The UBL effort [builds] on the work of the electronic business XML (ebXML) initiative. EbXML, currently continuing development in the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS), is an initiative to develop a technical framework that enables XML and other payloads to be utilized in a consistent manner for the exchange of all electronic business data. UBL is organized as an OASIS Technical Committee to guarantee a rigorous, open process for the standardization of the XML business language. The development of UBL within OASIS also helps ensure a fit with other essential ebXML specifications. UBL will be promoted to the level of international standard. The UBL Technical Committee has established the UBL Naming and Design Rules Subcommittee with the charter to 'Recommend to the TC rules and guidelines for normative-form schema design, instance design, and markup naming, and write and maintain documentation of these rules and guidelines'. Accordingly, this specification documents the rules and guidelines for the naming and design of XML components for the UBL library..."

• UBL Naming and Design Rules Checklist. "This document is a subset of the UBL Naming and Design Rules Master Document. It reflects the rules used to create the UBL 1.0 Final Release schemas..." [source .DOC]