[Platforms] Message from Julie to ship code list

[Roy Lowry]

===========================================================================
Julie tried to send this to the 'platforms at biwebs1.nerc-liv.ac.uk'  list, but something very strange happened and I got an
administration message I don't understand.  I'm resending it as part of my investigations.  Apologies if you get it more than once.

Cheers, Roy.
============================================================================

Dear Bob,

Thank you for your mail last month. Apologies for this delayed response.
For both personal and professional reasons, I have been out-of-office
quite a bit lately.

 

Susanne is in contact with your ship coders, and Roy has now set up a
mail group including the ship coders at your office, BODC and ICES. So I
trust that you have been kept well informed of our approach and
progress. All mails regarding ship codes, including this, should be sent
to the mail group.

 

Roy visited us on June 22-23 and we agreed on the following steps to
ensure solid technical governance of the ship codes:

1.	Align ICES, BODC & US-NODC ship lists: this task may take some
time. At one point, someone mentioned up to one year. Our goal is to
ensure an active, effective correction process by September 1.
2.	Enhance our Reference Coding System (RECO) with a number of
features including automatic time stamping, user stamping and version
numbering; full audit trails for version re-construction; table
extensions for supplementary information such as date of birth and
death; etc. Features will be fully developed and tested by September 1.
3.	Shift all ship names from upper-case to mixed case: this is not
within the scope of the current project, but all features will be
developed for case sensitivity.
4.	Allow free ship codes, i.e., do not require country codes as
first two digits of ship codes. Eventually, we will run out of codes for
some counties. Since country codes are databased separately, we do not
need them embedded in the codes. We will remove any reliance on the
embedded country codes from our systems. Free codes will be allowed by
September 1, but they are expected to be adopted gradually over a number
of years.

 

Roy and I have also been discussing models for content governance. I
will try to get a group together to discuss this at our Annual Science
Conference in September. Will you be there? Session M is on data
integration, so I hope there will be many MDM'ers and SeaDataNetters.

 

Our General Secretary, Gerd Hubold, will contact you soon regarding our
MoU.

 

Kind regards,

Julie

 

Julie Gillin 

 

Data Centre manager 

International Council for the Exploration of the Sea

H.C Andersens Boulevard 44-46, 
DK-1553 Copenhagen V; Denmark

* +45 33 38 67 00 Direct * +45 33 38 67 12 

7 +45 33 93 42 15  Web: http://www.ices.dk <http://www.ices.dk/>