Beef Cattle Recording: Data transfer
Automated data exchange between computers is a fast growing business. This trend is strongly favoured by an increasing use of the Internet.
Most areas of animal production are also involved in this process, such as routine data exchange between process computers, farm computers and mainframe computers at all levels of production, and in any direction within and across farms, breeding and recording organizations, commercial firms and administration authorities.
If animal production is subjected to quality assurance and/or takes place in complex production systems, i.e. in production chains with different owners and locations, there is the compelling necessity that the animal is accompanied by its individual data background during the whole production process beyond the animal’s own life span.
Use of the ADIS-ADED standard
Data exchange is still frequently carried out by individual agreements between sender and receiver about data contents and data structure. An alternative approach is the definition of fixed data formats by umbrella organisations applying for each member organisation and their personal members. However, such system quickly become inefficient with complex or fast growing information systems distributed to various participants.
The solution to this problem, is a fully automated data interchange based on flexible international standards. Automated data exchange using an international electronic data interchange protocol (EDI) avoids endless problem with bilateral data interfaces. Any individual agreements for data description are superseded and no adjustments to computer programs or manually operations are required any more. In the agricultural sector the use of the international ISO standard ADIS-ADED has become a routine application in many processor, personal and mainframe computers.
Compared to the prohibitive EDIFACT system, which is frequently used in the trade, the ADIS-ADED can be implemented stepwise thus saving resources. An ADIS-ADED interface is a simple ASCII file subject to the rules of ADIS-ADED. Because of this property it is able to ensure the data flow even through very heterogeneous system platforms. However, there is the restriction that ADIS-ADED only contains ordinary lists. Hierarchical or tree structures will not be reproduced.
ADIS-ADED provides a very transparent and clear interpretation of data fields. The clear definition of data items and entity tables with a unique distinction of different entry modes like key fields, mandatory and optional fields requires that the user accepts and anticipates the transparency of data definitions. The similarity of data structures and handling syntax with relational data banks makes the ADIS-ADED most suitable for data exchange across data banks without causing as much overhead as the standard internet data interchange protocol XML or EDIFACT. By using an appropriate SQL converter program, transmitted data can easily feed into the internal data bank.
Structure of the ADIS-ADED
Modern EDI systems are composed of modular structures to allow for an easy extension and for a stepwise integration of software components or modules from different manufacturers of diverse network systems. The most important components of ADIS-ADED is the Data Dictionary ADED (= Agriculture Data Element Dictionary) and the data transfer protocol ADIS (=Agriculture Data Interchange Syntax). The following parts of this chapter aim to give a brief summary of the most important elements of ADIS-ADED. More details can be found at ISO http://www.iso.ch. The ADIS ADED has been developed by ISO since 1995.
The Data Dictionary ADED
General
In the case of data exchange across computers the structure of transmitted data must be known and the data elements must be defined to enable the receiving program to pass the data according to its meaning into the internal data model. For this purpose, the data dictionary contains data objects (entities), that are composed of a set of data elements (items and code sets).
Data elements as defined by the Data Dictionary ADED originally referred mainly to the data exchange across process control computers and management computers. However, there is no implication that data elements may not be used for other levels of data exchange such as across the management computer and external computers as well as between/across software applications within the same management computer. The use of the same version of the ADED Data Dictionary by the sender as well as by the receiver is an essential prerequisite for any data exchange.
The general structure of ADED is defined by ISO11788-1. There are 3 different standard levels of the data elements:
Level 1:
- International data elements as defined by ISO 11788-2 are centrally stored and apply world wide.
- International data element numbers are indicated by the leading digit “9”.
Level 2:
- National data elements are centrally stored and apply at national level.
- National data element numbers are indicated by a leading digit between “1” and “8”.
Level 3:
- Private data elements are specific to the software developer.
- Private data element numbers are indicated by the leading digit “0”.
In most cases data exchange will contain a mixture of international and national data elements. The international data dictionary for cattle is described in detail by ISO 11788-2. In this respect it is notable that the international Data Dictionary only contains a very limited number of items used for dairy farming and at present most Data Dictionary elements are developed on a national level.. Therefore, a broad extension of the international data dictionary to include more elements for dairy and beef farming seems to be essential.
Data elements (items, code sets)
Data elements (DDI = items) provide a unique and clear definition of each item appearing in the Data Dictionary. They are uniquely defined by:
- Unique identification number.
- Name with a length of up to 65 characters.
- Data type that may my be either numerical or alphanumerical.
- Use of ISO units.
- Use of the extended 8-bytes ASCII characters (ISO 8-bit code).
- Being a component of at least 1 data object.
Data objects (Entities)
Data exchange requires the definition of entities. The entity describes the contents and the structure of records that are transmitted according to ADIS rules. An entity might be composed of international, national und producer specific data elements. It is defined as a logical unit and structured by attribute lists describing an event or a simple object. Entities show some analogy to tables in data banks. According to convention key fields should be placed first in each record line. Optional fields may be omitted if appropriate.
Recommendation
The ADIS-ADED standard is able to provide an unambiguous, flexible, fully automated and cheap data exchange standard across different system platforms and computer communication in a peer-to-peer system. Because of these properties it is recommended to use ADIS-ADED for any kind of data transfer in beef production and beef recording.
Scope
The International Data Dictionary ADED for cattle aims to unify and to standardise beef data interchange across computer systems on an international and also in certain circumstances at a national and private level. Furthermore it aims to map a comprehensive data model associated with cattle production relieving national and private bodies from the need to establish their own country specific standards as far as possible.
The definitions and descriptions of ADIS-ADED apply for data exchange of ASCII-files within and across process computers, personal computers and mainframe computers in any direction across those systems. The data applies for data exchange within and across farm level, management- und evaluation computer programs on farm level and computer programs of service providers (e.g. recording organisations, breeding organisations and veterinarian and public services).
Responsibilities
The ISO ADIS-ADED Working Group
The international standards for data exchange by ADIS-ADED are developed by the ISO working group ISO/TC 23/SC 19/WG 2. However with regard to the maintenance, update and new developments of the cattle data dictionary, close cooperation with competent international professional bodies like ICAR is strongly recommended.
Role of ICAR
Within ICAR the Animal Recording Working Group is responsible for the development of the international Data Dictionary for ruminants. Therefore proposals to ISO/TC 23/SC 19/WG 2 for updates and extensions to the international dictionary for cattle are forwarded exclusively by this Group. The Animal Recording Working Group acts in close collaboration with the responsible ISO group and collects suggestions and proposals from other ICAR working groups and national developer groups involved in the development of an international ADED.
The other ICAR working groups contribute to the ICAR Animal Recording Group according to their specific expertise. Their contribution includes first drafts and proposals for new Data Dictionary elements being forwarded to the Animal Recording Group. Beef recording implies an intensive data exchange between many participant involved in the recording and breeding process. Therefore the ICAR Beef Recording Group is developing a comprehensive data model referring to each of the recording schemes as mentioned in the previous chapters. This data model forms the base for the beef data elements which can be seen as a sub set of the Data Dictionary for cattle. Differences between national laws and regulations, breeds and production schemes will be taken into account. Proposals for beef recording and beef breeding elements in the international cattle data dictionary may be made by individuals and organisations. However, prior to any handling within the ICAR Animal Recording Group they will be reviewed with regard to their relevance, completeness and systematic correctness by the ICAR Beef Group. If the Beef Group agrees, the proposals will be forwarded to the Animal Recording Group.
