Interoperability is often divided into four areas: legal, organizational, semantic, and technical (cf. the European Interoperability Framework EIF).
Semantic interoperability is normally defined as interoperability that enables the transfer and processing of data in way that keeps the meaning unchanged and the content comprehensible to all parties. Information has a precise meaning that remains unchanged and understandable to everyone when data is exchanged.
The purpose of the Finnish interoperability platform is to provide tools that support the semantic and technical interoperability of digital services. The Interoperability platform consists of data vocabularies, code lists and other information models which are essential for information flows and management. The platform and its tools are maintained by the Digital and Population Data Services Agency (Finnish Digital Agency).
The FI-Platform supports Interoperability method that enables consistent definition of data content, as well as transparent joint management of information within shared projects.
The Finnish Interoperability platform (FI-Platform)
The platform consists of the terminologies, code sets and data models needed for defining data flows as well as in other areas of information management.
- Better visibility for content providers
- Efficient reuse of once created content
- Both human and machine-readable content
- When a data model is created with the Data Vocabularies Tool, it is provided with a unique identifier (URI, and in the future a URI-compatible IRI)
- Machine readable and identifiable concepts, data models, reference data etc. can be referenced elsewhere
- For example, classes and properties created in data models can be based on existing concepts in terminologies
- Thus, common concept definitions and general level “reusable” data models promote interoperability between information systems
The Interoperability Method
The interoperability method is a shared way of managing, maintaining, and creating the knowledge structure and metadata of digital services and their respective information flows. By using the methodology, the semantic interoperability of information is maintained, meaning that the meaning of the information remains unchanged when it is exchanged.
The interoperability method contains the principles and operating models by which data content is produced for the interoperability platform. Central to this are the uniformity and reuse of data specifications describing data content: maximum use is made of existing terminologies, code sets and data models.
Instead of a situation where each organization determines, for example, the concept of a ‘person’ and the information related to it, the description is produced for the interoperability platform only once. After that, other users can refer to the description and apply it. Technically speaking, the descriptions of terminologies, code sets and data models imported into the interoperability platform are linked data, or specific online resources with their own permanent identification that can be referred to from elsewhere.
Role based access to the FI-Platform
There are five roles associated with the management of the interoperability platform tools and user rights: main user, data model editor, terminology editor, code list editor, and a member.
The main user of the organization has access to all interoperability platform tools. The main user also grants access rights to persons in their own organization (approves requests for access rights from members of the organization).
A terminology editor can create and edit terminologies in the Terminologies tool.
A code list editor can import new code sets into the Reference Data tool, edit them, and add descriptive information to the code sets of their own organizations.
A data model editor can create new application profiles and edit data models of their own organizations in the Data vocabularies tool.
Members can view the organization’s material marked with the status ‘Under Construction’. Members do not have editing rights.
The following subchapters present the tools of the FI-Platform and their main purposes and use cases.