Concept Scheme V10

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Overview

A Concept Scheme holds descriptive information for an arrangement or division of concepts into groups based on characteristics, which the objects have in common. Concepts are used by Dimensions, Attributes, Measures, and Metadata Attributes to provide them with a semantic meaning.

Concepts can also be used to define a default representation, for example it is possible to link the Concept of Frequency to a Codelist containing all the Frequency Codes, any structure using the Concept will inherit the default representation.

Structure Properties

Structure Type	Standard SDMX Structural Metadata Artefact
Maintainable	Yes
Identifiable	Yes
Item Scheme	Yes
SDMX Information Model Versions	1.0, 2.0, 2.1
URN - Codelist namespace	urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.codelist.Codelist
URN - Code namespace	urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.codelist.Code

Context within the SDMX 2.1 Information Model

Conventions

'CL_' Codelist ID Prefix

Codelist IDs are given a 'CL_' prefix to distinguish them from other structures. For instance: CL_FREQ, CL_REF_AREA, CL_AGE.

Code ID Conventions

Codes can take any legal SDMX ID. But there are several conventions that should be taken into account when choosing Code IDs:

Uppercase	By convention, Code ID's are in uppercase such as 'ABC'. Lower case Codes are valid (for example 'abc'), but care should be taken in their use to avoid confusion.
'_Z' Code	The '_Z' code is conventionally used for the Undefined and Unknown classification.
'TOTAL' Code	The 'TOTAL' code represents the total or sum of the dimension. For a 'country' dimension, series with TOTAL would indicate the sum of observation values for all countries.

=Other - Dependent on the Structure)