scope:

Introduction

Standard data is the cornerstone of the information infrastructure that supports the systems and overall mission of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Standard data will help the FAA to operate in an integrated, effective and efficient manner and allow the sharing of information which is critical to the establishment of FAA-wide information services envisioned to support the FAA for the future. Each individual data standard is a description of a data element shared among FAA information systems, and is portrayed through a common set of metadata (data about data). These metadata sets comply with recommendations set forth in International Organization for Standardization / International Electrotechnical Commission (ISO/IEC) 11179 and follow best practices for managing sharable data.¹

In June 2006, the FAA Administrator signed the FAA Data Management Order 1375.1D (07/25/2006) which gives the responsibility to the FAA Data Governance Board (FDGB)² to review and manage standard descriptions of FAA data. It is under that authority that this handbook has been developed and will be maintained.

Purpose

This Handbook is for guidance only and cannot be cited as a requirement. It describes the process that all FAA organizations should follow for standardization of FAA data. This handbook conforms to the program objectives set forth in the FAA Data Management Order 1375.1D (07/25/2006) and outlines the procedures for initiating, developing, seeking approval of, registering and maintaining FAA data standards. Use of these procedures will improve the consistent and uniform identification and standardization of FAA data in support of interoperability, data sharing, system design and development, system integration, and business process improvements.

To maximize data sharing across systems in the FAA, approved data standards must be registered and stored in the Federal Data Registry (FDR). The FDR is the authoritative source of FAA data standards and is the mechanism to be used in the data standardization process. The FDR has been made publicly accessible via the internet (user-ID and password is required) to facilitate the creation and use of aviation data exchange standards throughout the aviation community.

The document is intended for those individuals who will play a role in standardizing data, namely information stewards and other staff with data management responsibilities (e.g. Data Architects, Data Modelers, etc.) so some knowledge of sound data management practices is assumed. For those who would like more information prior to using this Handbook, there is a detailed list of Data Management Reference documents included in Section 2 (Applicable References) below.

1 "For systems to be truly open, data must be portable and shareable within and among these various application environments, which span localized and distributed networks. For data to be shareable, both the users and owners of data must have a common understanding of its meaning, representation, and identification. To understand the meaning of any data, the descriptions of the data must be available to the users from, for example, a Data Element Registry. Data must be adequately described and users must have a convenient way to obtain these descriptions. Data Element Registries provide a way to organize the content and representation of data elements so that data descriptions are consistently specified and can be easily located by data designers and users. Uniform specification of data facilities, data retrieval, data exchange, and consistent use of data are needed throughout the Software Development Life Cycle. The units of information with normalized meanings and formats are known as "standardized data elements"". - ISO/IEC STANDARD 11179, Metadata Registries.

2 The FAA Data Governance Board was established to implement information and data management policy described in the FAA Data Management Order 1375.1D (07/25/2006).