SBVR12 — Clarify Purpose and Scope of SBVR, the Authority for SBVR Vocabulary Content, and SBVR Vocabularies

Title: Clarify the Purpose and Scope of SBVR, the Authority for SBVR Vocabulary Content, and SBVR Vocabularies Do Not Include Business Instance Data
Source:
Business Semantics Ltd, Donald Chapin, (Donald.Chapin@btinternet.com)
Summary:
Since SBVR v1.0 was published in January 2008 there has been widespread misinterpretation and misrepresentation of SBVR as a data modeling specification that is not easy to refute with finality because Clause 1 “Scope’ does not make it clear that the authority for the content of an SBVR Vocabulary is the usage of terms and other designations in a corpus of business documentation.
Further contributing to the problem is the fact that the Subclause 10.1 formal semantics for SBVR is one that is based on a fact-oriented data modeling paradigm. Even though the formal interpretation is meant to be specified only in terms of formal logic there is wide reference to “facts”. Since the representations of facts are what data is, without statements to the contrary this can be used as a basis for incorrectly interpret the SBVR vocabularies in Clause 7, 8, 9, 1 & 12 as a collection of vocabularies for fact-oriented data modeling rather than documentation of the business language used by business people.
Resolution:
1. Clarify the Scope of SBVR in Clause 1 to be explicit that SBVR does not include business instance data; and make it clear that the content of an SBVR vocabulary documents the meaning of terms that business authors intend when they use them in their business communications, as evidenced in their written documentation, especially governance documentation.
2. Add a list of purposes / uses of SBVR
3. Explain that “Semantic Anchors” are the best way to relate SBVR vocabularies to data models and models for reasoning over data.
4. Make it clear that SBVR vocabularies are different from all forms of data models models for and reasoning over data..
5. Make fact an abstract concept in Clause 13.2.2 as instances of business facts (instance data) and fact statements do not go into an SBVR Vocabularies or Rulebooks.
6. Clean up miscellaneous uses of the word “fact”.
Revised Text:
… to follow

1. Clarify the Scope of SBVR in Clause 1 to be explicit that SBVR does not include business instance data; and make it clear that the content of an SBVR vocabulary documents the meaning of terms that business authors intend when they use them in their business communications, as evidenced in their written documentation, especially governance documentation.
2. Add a list of purposes / uses of SBVR
3. Make it clear that SBVR vocabularies are different from all forms of data models and models designed for reasoning over instance data.
4. Make fact an abstract concept in Clause 13.2.2 as instances of business facts (instance data) and fact statements do not go into an SBVR Vocabularies or Rulebooks.
5. Clean up miscellaneous uses of the word “fact”.