The Electronic Commerce Code Management Association (ECCMA) is a new breed of standards organization focused on satisfying the needs of electronic commerce- the need for true international consensus in real time. Formed in April of 1999, ECCMA has brought together thousands of experts from around the world and provides them a means of working together in the fair, open and extremely fast environment of the Internet to build and maintain the global, open standard dictionaries that are used to unambiguously label information. The existence of these dictionaries of labels allows information to be passed from one computer system to another without losing meaning.

The registered name of the association is Code Management Association (CMA), but the trading name is Electronic Commerce Code Management Association (ECCMA). The association is registered as a 501(c)(6)corporation.

Codes managed by ECCMA must be available free to the general public without copyright restrictions. Codes managed by ECCMA are maintained and distributed exclusively over the Internet.

ECCMA operates under a defined architecture with comprehensive rules and procedures for code development and maintenance. Specifically code development and maintenance must remain an open consensus process and shall not be dominated by a single organization or interest category. Any person or organization with a direct and material interest may participate in the development and maintenance of the codes maintained by the ECCMA.

ECCMA seeks to collaborate closely with other related standards bodies to avoid any duplication of effort, conflict or confusion that may adversely affect the user community.

ECCMA will strictly adhere to the highest ethical principles.

The Board of Directors of the Corporation manages, supervises and controls the business, property and affairs of the Corporation. Currently ECCMA has 10 Board Directors.

Candidates may be proposed by the Nominating Committee or by write-in during the election process. At each election of Directors, those candidates receiving the largest number of votes shall be elected. When there is a vacancy on the Board, the Chairman of the Board of Directors shall appoint a Nominating Committee at least sixty days prior to the Annual Meeting of Members. The purpose of the Nominating Committee is to compile a list of nominees to be elected to the Board of Directors.

Individuals interested in becoming a Board Director must submit a biography and a brief summary as to why they would like to become a Board Director. This information can be mailed to peter.benson@eccma.org, Executive Director.

Access to a Member's Area with advanced cataloging tools such as classifications, abbreviations and units of measure conversion tables

Use of ECCMA logos to support the development of implementation of open standards for content

Membership discounts and invitations to ECCMA organized meetings and events

Opportunity to participate or join the Services Industry Content Standards Council (SICSC), Natural Resources Industry Content Standards Council (NRICSC), Oil and Gas Industry Content Standards Council (OGICSC) or create new council

Opportunity to have a hyperlink on all Service Provider pages of the ECCMA website

Ability to participate in bimonthly ECCMA Newsletter to share events or activities with other members

ECCMA Member Directory provides the ability to post company logo, description of company and services, point of contact and a hyperlink to company website

Assistance in creating the eOTD Identification Guides

Notification of eOTD changes that impact any of the registered items

Ability to submit up to 1,000 descriptions per member per year for coding files eOTD and UNSPSC

Ability to download and view electronic copies of updated code versions

Participation in joint press releases with ECCMA and other corporate members to support the development and implementation of open standards for content

Access to ECCMA staff for telephone technical and implementation support

Access to ECCMA Global Item Registry for both registration and resolution

Commercial & Government Membership

500 or more employees ($5,000.00 USD)

Commercial & Government Membership 100-499 employees ($2,500.00 USD)

Commercial & Government Membership

50-99 employees ($1,000.00 USD)

Commercial & Government Membership

less than 50 employees ($500.00 USD)

Non Profit Industry & Professional Associations Membership ($500.00 USD)

Education Membership Student or Professor ($50.00 USD)

The ECCMA board has agreed to offer members in countries designated by the World Bank as lower income economies a discount on membership from January 1st 2007. If your company headquarters are in one of the following countries you qualify for a 50% membership discount. Please view complete list of qualified countries online.

Reduced Commercial & Government 500 or more employees ($2,500.00 USD)

Reduced Commercial & Government Membership 100-499 employees ($1,250.00 USD)

Reduced Commercial & Government Membership 50-99 employees ($500.00 USD)

Reduced Commercial & Government Membership less than 50 employees ($250.00 USD)

Reduced Non Profit Industry & Professional Associations Membership ($250.00 USD)

Yes, your company logo will be included in the Member Directory along with a brief outline of organization and services.

The eOTD is a dictionary of terminology where terms, definitions and images are linked to concept identifiers, these concept identifiers are used to create encoded descriptions of individuals, organizations, locations, goods and services.

Upon joining ECCMA, you will be assigned a username and password, which will give you access to the Member Login area.

As a member of ECCMA, you may request an addition or change to any of the codes we manage. These requests are reviewed by a Technical Secretariat and then sent out to members of the Technical Advisory Group for vote.

Not at the commodity level but there are some definitions at the higher levels. The UNSPSC is a hierarchical classification and as such does not typically have definitions. You may want to consider using the eOTD to find the right class (commodity) and then look up the UNSPSC. Most classes in the eOTD have definitions as well as translations and multiple classifications so you can look up either the UNSPSC or any one of several classifications.

Identification guides or cataloging templates are used by an organization to specify what data they need; typically a buyer will give an identification guide to its suppliers. If a buyer is building an identification guide they will typically use an existing one and modify it, very much as you would do with a word template. ECCMA is building a registry of Identification Guides so a buyer can simply inform their suppliers where to obtain it from. Many organizations work together on the development of identification guides such as in the mining and service industries.

The UNSPSC is a hierarchical classification or group class; it is used to group like items together traditionally for analyzing expenditure. There are several ways of implementing the UNSPSC, the first and the most obvious is to add the UNSPSC code to descriptions so that you can group these together. This is similar to adding an account code with the advantage that the UNSPSC is already organized in a hierarchy. This works well if the UNSPSC hierarchy fits your requirements and you are the one assigning the UNSPSC code. If you are not assigning the code you still need to verify that the code is correct. Typically companies find that they need to analyze their expenditure somewhat differently than the "standard" so over time they build their own classification. Our recommendation is that companies use the eOTD class identifier as this allows them to analyze their expenditure according to their own or any of the classifications that they may be required to use in reporting such as the CPV in Europe.

If you can not find a suitable eOTD class you can request that one be added. Making additions to the eOTD requires that a consensus process be followed and we can help identify the appropriate organization to process the request. A term and a definition is required to add a concept to the eOTD. Guidelines for developing these terms and definitions can be found in ISO 22745-11.

While buyers are looking to improve the quality of their master data (vendor, material, service masters), many vendors have also realized that data integration with their key customers is an excellent way of creating and maintaining long term relationships. ISO 8000 allows both parties to adopt a common standard for the exchange of master data. ISO 8000 is still under development but there are expected to be three levels or conformance classes. The first deals with the intrinsic quality of the data itself such as syntax and semantic encoding, this level is very easy to implement using the eOTD. The second deals with provenance or the origin of the data. The third deals with measuring data accuracy. ECCMA is introducing a certification process under which a buyer can request that ECCMA issue an ECCMA 8000 Master Data Quality Certificate to suppliers that have implemented the eOTD. The certificate is valid for one year.

Identification is about assigning a reference number that can be used to identify an item. There are two common levels of identification, the first identifies a unique item such as a serial number of a computer or a VIN number for a car (the license plate number actually identifies the owner), the second identifies a group of items such as a part number or model number. While serial numbers are used for asset tracking, part numbers are used for ordering. Description consists in describing something so that it can be distinguished from or grouped with others through its form or function. Descriptions can be free form or structured. The quality of a description is measured by the degree to which it fulfills its function - search for example. Structured descriptions are typically made up from property value pairs that describe the characteristics of an item (individual, organization, location, or service). The key to a good description is ensuring that the concepts used in a description (properties, units of measure, enumerated values) are explicitly labeled, this is what the eOTD is for. A classification or group class is a hierarchy used to group items that share similar characteristics. A classification typically has many levels and can be compared to a tree that starts with a trunk which branches out to its leaves. The leaves are the lowest level of the classification and the trunk is the highest, sometimes you hear programmers talking about the leaf node, this just means the lowest level of data. A company's chart of accounts is a form of classification. By their very nature, classifications are orders that serve a specific purpose and you can not use a classification designed for one purpose to serve another. Classifications typically cover specific domains and exclude others. For example, the customs classification used for import and export tariffs does not cover services, as the movement of services can not be controlled at boarders (they are working on it).

There have been projects proposed to use OWL to improve the concept definitions in the eOTD. This would allow the eOTD to be used more effectively for creating structured descriptions. Currently the eOTD concept encoding is the best way to create unambiguous computer processable specifications.

ISO 22745 is a standard that defines open technical dictionaries and their application to cataloging. The goal is to create a framework that allows two parties to exchange master data (vendor, material, service, HR, etc.) without the risk of misunderstanding each other. Furthermore, it is important that the information be capable of being used in any computer application (neutral exchange), easily translated and it must stand the test of time (long term data retention).

To do this we created a central dictionary (the eOTD) which contains terms (words) and definitions linked to a public domain concept identifier. Many terms and definitions can be linked to the same concept identifier reflecting different ways of describing the concept by language, country and industry. The creators of catalog data use the dictionary to encode the metadata (labels) they have chosen to describe the item. For example instead of identifying the part number as "AM23456" the manufacturer or supplier would say 0161-1-02-027375 = "AM23456." The reason for this is that while one supplier may use the label part number, another may use SKU or product number or simply #. Using a numeric label that is tied back to a definition allows the person who encoded the data to point to the full meaning of the label in a dictionary. The concept identifier must be in the public domain or the encoded file becomes a "joint work" belonging to both the person who created the data and the owner of the identifier.

As most manufacturers and suppliers know, buyers want different information; this is the purpose of the Identification Guide. An Identification Guide is a cataloging template that can be used by a buyer to specify exactly what data they want using the eOTD concept identifiers. This is a great help to manufacturers and suppliers as the eOTD includes terminology not only from NATO, ISO and IEC but also from other standards organizations and industry groups.

ISO explains the theory of how the pieces fit together and also includes the specification of the XML schemas that are the practical format used to exchange Identification Guides and Catalog data. ISO 22745 also includes the specification of how concept identifiers can be found and resolved using standard on line services.

Where an organization is made up of multiple business units where each business unit is a legal trading entity in its own right (files its own accounts for example) then each business unit must have its own membership in ECCMA. A "Division" of a company that it is not a separate legal entity is not a business unit and therefore the size of the organization as a whole rather than the division is used in determining membership fees.

Where an organization has multiple business units that are members of ECCMA and the combined membership fees paid reaches $20,000, all further business unit memberships are complimentary.

The ECCMA board has agreed to offer members in countries designated by the World Bank as lower income economies a discount on membership from January 1st 2007. If your company headquarters are in one of the following countries you qualify for a 50% membership discount. If you are currently a member the discount will be applied to your 2007 renewal. Please click here to view a list of qualified countries.

We are planning on switching to a web services interface later this year. The interface will be ISO 29002 compliant and will support both terminology query and identifier resolution. For ECCMA members that wish to maintain a mirror copy of the eOTD on their own site we are working on an eOTD network agreement under which members of ECCMA can host locally a complete copy of the eOTD on condition that they (1) are members of ECCMA, (2) register the location of the copy, (3) agree to maintain it up to date and (4) provide a public ISO 29002 compliant web services interface. The intent of the agreement is to ensure that the current version of the eOTD is available globally on redundant servers.

Regarding the format in which the eOTD will be distributed to the mirrored sites that will largely be up to the group to decide what they prefer. The master copy will reside with our Research and Development division in India and currently the companies that have expressed interest in hosting a mirrored copy of the eOTD.