Reference Data Manager

Our Reference Data Manager platform is a solution that builds upon the open source registry software that we developed. The platform and software is trusted and used internationally by organisations needing to manage their reference data. It provides a range of reference management tools and services such as controlled, authoritative lists of identifiers as URIs. This supports good data governance, data standards, data collaboration and data use.

Our Reference Data Manager platform

It provides a service to create and manage controlled, authoritative lists of identifiers as URIs. The identifiers in these lists may be external to the registry (maintained by a third party) or may be managed within the controlled namespace. For managed identifiers the Reference Data Manager stores core data so that the identifiers resolve. It provides for the management and maintenance of that data. Different groups can be enabled to publish identifiers within a shared namespace.

The platform is a solution that supports your organisation in managing such reference data, particularly things like code lists or managed sets of identifiers.

A key enabler for shareable, reusable open data is accessible reference data. By reference data we mean the standardised terms used to identify “things” in the data. These things could be codes, spatial objects, namespaces, units of measure, substances, methodologies, organizations and general vocabulary elements. Most datasets make use of such identifiers and to safely interpret the data we need to know what they mean. To enable data sets to be combined or compared we need to reuse, or at least map between, these reference identifiers.

For UK Public Sector clients, we have been awarded a place on GCloud and Digital Outcomes & Specialists Digital Marketplace agreements. See our Digital Marketplace page for more details and links to the services.

Benefits

Service for publication of sustainable, trusted and usable reference data

Publishing connective reference data that supports key data infrastructure

Publishing persistent URIs meeting open standards and best practice

Supporting data governance and standards as 5-star data

Embed and enforce data standards within your internal data/ICT governance

Enables programmatic and systematic validation of codes against managed lists

We worked with the UK’s National Meteorological Service, the Met Office to build a reference registry for controlled terminology and specifications. This helps them in managing data standards and supporting data governance. The Met Office manage the registry on their own infrastructure.

We developed the environment.data.gov.uk registry for Defra. We provide a managed service to support its use. Defra use the reference registry for controlled terminology and codelists in support of data governance and standards across the Defra group. The codelists act as key reference data across many of Defra’s data publications.

Supporting Data Standards

This is well suited for publishing connective reference data with persistent URIs that supports key data infrastructure, internal and external digital services, data management, integration and data standards and governance activities.

We provide tools to manage a hierarchy of reference terms, delegating authority to different groups to maintain the data and version control in an open way that helps you build trust with your users.

This is well suited for publishing connective reference data with persistent URIs that supports key data infrastructure, internal and external digital services, data management, integration and data standards and governance activities.

Features

Tools to manage a hierarchy of reference terms, core reference data, code lists and vocabularies

Supports delegating authority to different groups to maintain the data

Fully standards-compliant linked data based URI core

Reference data publication and management platform