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Getting Started with ISO 15926
In the Introduction to ISO 15926 we compare getting started with the standard to the evolution of the creation of web pages for the internet. Fifteen years ago, if you wanted to make a web page you would have had to lean how to code Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) by hand. Nowadays, for a few dollars a month you can use the tools of a service provider and drag and drop widgets to make in a few minutes what would have taken days and weeks.
Implementation of ISO 15926 is following a similar path. Some of the parts of the standard require some computer programming, and as short a time as two years ago users would have had to write it themselves. Now, however, there are a number of tools which support the various parts of ISO 15926.
There are a number of approaches to implementing ISO 15926 depending on what you want to achieve and the resources available. In the book we show how the standard can be implemented gradually by a small team from a small organization. In fact, if your organization has ever been involved in moving information directly between two software applications, it probably already employs people with the required skills.
In the book we explain this in more detail, but basically, you start the information exchange project in the same way you normally do. Eventually you will come to a part where you determine that "this database term over here" means the same as "that database term over there". The traditional approach is to create what is called a database map to relate the two together. But instead of mapping the two terms directly together, map each to the appropriate term in Part 4. As your team learns more about ISO 15926 they can get more sophisticated.
A good way to learn more about ISO 15926 is to join FIATECH or the POSC Caesar Association (PCA), join a project or two and attend a few conferences. There you will meet people who have travelled down this path ahead of you and can help you out.