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Guidance

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Exchanged information is “information that is shared between actors in the ATM Network”.

Documented means that the exchange information is represented in a formalised form such as XML Schema or a data catalogue.

An information definition is “a formal representation of information concepts or data concepts”.

Types of information definitions

• Disambiguate from the examples section. The following are types of Information definitions.
• It could be convenient to provide links to existing information definitions (external references, see AIXM examples)

Data Catalogue

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UML Model

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Exchange Model

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Verification Support

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The specification gives examples of types of information definitions:

• standardised information exchange models
• descriptions of information exchanged by services
• data catalogues
• information exchanges captured as part of a business process model

The following section gives an overview of these.

Standardised information exchange models

Standardised information exchange models include:

• Aeronautical Information Exchange Model (AIXM)
• Flight Information Exchange Model (FIXM)
• Weather Information Exchange Model (WXXM)
• ICAO Meteorological Information Exchange Model (IWXXM)
• Aerodrome Mapping Exchange Model (AMXM)

They are agreed and published by a particular community of interest. The example above relate to three ICAO business domains. However, other exchange models exist. A service description may refer to one of these exchange models in order to define its payload.

The figure below provides an extract of the AMXM XML schema. It details "element name", "documentation" and "type" information.

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Description of information exchange by services

Services are used to exchange information. Often, the service makes use of a standardised information exchange model as the format for the information exchange. However, other services will develop a more particular payload model. This can be done in the Unified Modeling Language (UML) as given in the figure below.

The figure is taken from a service description for a service exchanging METAR information. It shows the names and definitions of the "EntityItems" that will form the exchanged information.

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Data catalogues

Data catalogues are used to list details on the exchanged information. They are often used as a way of agreeing the information that is to be captured and exchanged as part of a publication process. The figure below is taken from the ICAO PANS-AIM Data Catalogue. It is in tabular format and details "subjects", "properties", "types" and their "descriptions". A data catalogue can contain many more items such as requirements on the accuracy of the data to be collected.

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Information exchanges captured as part of a business process model

Business process modelling is a key art the service oriented approach. It is used to identify information exchange requirements, including the names and definitions of the elements being exchanged throughout the process.

Verification Support

Completeness

Check that:

•  There is an information definition. 
•  The information definition covers all of the information that is exchanged between the actors. 

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1. The information definition can be a standalone document or embedded into another document such as a service description. (A set of documents
2. The information defintion can be provided instead of a single one)

Examples/Best Practice

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Examples of complete information definitions are given at xxx

Add list of examples e.g. ED-254, AIXM, etc.

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1. made up of a set of documents. This is common practice when designing XML schemas.

Examples

Example information defintions are:

• AIXM
• EUROCAE ED-252
  
  
  

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References

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