Use of ISO-standards

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Proposed by Jens Vindvad, January 2003

I have the following comments to CERIF regarding use of ISO standards: I think we should use ISO standards when possible. For currency, country and language there exists ISO standards.

Currency:
ISO 4217:2001 Codes for the representation of currencies and funds
http://www.iso.ch/iso/en/prods-services/popstds/currencycodes.html

Quote from ISO:
“This International Standard specifies the structure for a three-letter alphabetic code and an equivalent three-digit numeric code for the representation of currencies and funds. For those currencies having minor units, it also shows the decimal relationship between such units and the currency itself.”

According to ISO, BSI is maintenance agency for ISO 4217. From their web site you can download a list of currency codes.
http://www.bsi-global.com/Portfolio+of+Products+and+Services/Books+Guides/Consumer/th42090.xalter

I suggest that all currency should be char(3) and have the following text in Comments/Meaning column. “ISO 4217:2001”. This will affect the following tables:
OrgUnit
Funding_Programme
Project-Funding_Programme

The next discussion regarding currency is; should we give any advice about using alphabetic code versus digit numeric code?

Today my personal view is towards alphabetic code, but we do not have to give any advice now or later, because there is a one to one mapping between alphabetic code and digit numeric code.


Country codes:
ISO 3166-1:1997.
http://www.iso.ch/iso/en/prods-services/iso3166ma/index.html

From their web site:
Why are there three different codes - alpha-2, alpha-3 and numeric-3 code - in ISO 3166-1?
A: All three ISO 3166-1 codes cover an identical number of country names i.e. their scope is identical.

·The alpha-2 code is the most widely used one of the three and apart from that it is the basis for other coding systems which attach further alphabetical or numeric characters to the alpha-2 code elements. Examples are the currency codes from ISO 4217 or the UN/LOCODE.
·The alpha-3 code allows a better visual association between country name and code element than the alpha-2 code.
·The numeric-3 code has the advantage of a relatively strong script independence, i.e. in contrary to the Latin characters of the alphabetic codes the numbers used in the numeric-3 code are also used in the Cyrillic, Japanese or Greek scripts. Thus they are understood and interpreted correctly in countries where these non-Latin scripts are used.

I suggest we also use country codes for nationalities. I do not know it this will give any problems. Do you have some comments?

I suggest that country codes should be char(3), this will affect the following tables:
Person  (Nationalities)
Result_Patent
Contact
Contact_Countrycode
Person-Nationality


Language:
The ISO standard for language are: ISO 639 with ISO 369-1 and 369-2. Library of Congress is the Registration Authority for ISO 639-2, http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/

Use of language codes can be complicated. For a good reference I will point to IETF RFC 3066 by H. Alvestrand: http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3066.txt

According to RFC3066 language codes can have 8 characters in addition to 2-letter country code if I understand this correct. This sums up to 10 characters.

I suggest a language field of char(10). If we do not want to use this option, I suggest we at least have char(3) so we are able to use ISO 639-2, which use 3 characters. This will affect the following tables:

Project-Title
Project-Abstract
Project-Keywords
Person-Research Interest
OrgUnit-Name
OrgUnit-Research Interest
OrgUnit-Research Activity
Result_Publication-Title
Result_Patent-Title
Result_Patent-Abstract
Result_Product-Name
Result_Product-Description
Classification-Description
Facility-Name
Facility-Description
Equipment-Name
Equipment-Description
Experience&Skill-Name
Experience&Skill-Description
Service-Name
Service-Description
Funding_Programme-Name
Funding_Programme-Description
Event-Name
Event-Description
Language
Person-Language
Person