Interoperability

Inter-operability is the ability of two or more systems or components to exchange information and then to use that information. Typically inter-operability will be undertaken at two levels: semantic and technical. Semantic inter-operability allows stakeholders to describe the requirements without consideration of the technical implementation. With respect to software, the term inter-operability is used to describe the technical capability of different programs to exchange data via a common set of exchange formats, to read and write the same file formats, and to use the same protocols.

Inter-operability represents the capability to run processes seamlessly across organizational boundaries without losing context or meaning. It is achieved by:
 * understanding how the business processes of different organizations can interconnect;
 * specifying the semantics of messages within these processes so that the requirements and context can be agreed by all stakeholders;
 * developing standards to support these business processes efficiently, so that the messages can be exchanged between organizations in a scalable way; and
 * providing implementation guidelines on how the semantics are transformed into syntactically equivalent messages which can be understood and processed automatically by disparate systems.

Semantic inter-operability enables Trade facilitation organizations such as UN/CEFCAT to develop libraries such as the UN CCL, where information is presented in a consistent manner, regardless of technology, application or platform. At a government or sectoral level, semantic inter-operability is often a prerequisite before systems/technical inter-operability because requirements can be agreed by the business owners without the complexity of discussing the implementation methodology.

This same process can be undertaken for intergovernmental message exchange. Projects such as NIEM (http://niem.gov) in the US and ISA (@http://ec.europa.eu/isa/) in the EU have developed a library of common vocabulary for consistent, repeatable exchanges of information between governmental organizations. Semantic libraries can be published using the Asset Description Metadata Schema (ADMS). This is a repository where semantic asset descriptions can be stored so that implementing organizations can search or discover the appropriate standard and download the appropriate information.

It thus provides organizations with the ability to transfer and use information across multiple technologies and systems by creating commonality in the way that systems exchange information between processes across organizational boundaries.