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3.2.2 Explicit Separation of Interpretive Concerns
Return to 3.2 Design Principles of the FDIS Reference Architecture
The Federated Data Interpretation Systems Reference Architecture (FDIS-RA) enforces a clear separation among:
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Reported artefacts
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Observed facts
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Semantic representations
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Interpretation logic
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Derived facts
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Validation and assessment outcomes
This separation is a foundational architectural principle. It prevents evidence, observation, interpretation, and assessment from collapsing into opaque and inseparable system behaviour.
By maintaining these concerns as distinct architectural responsibilities, FDIS-RA preserves evidentiary inputs independently of the meanings, classifications, calculations, and conclusions later applied to them.
This separation enables organisations to:
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Inspect how an interpretation was produced
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Challenge or review an interpretive result
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Apply revised definitions or rules
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Replace an interpretation method
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Reassess historical information
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Preserve the original reported material without recharacterisation
The principle is essential for long-lived regulatory systems in which definitions, rules, parameters, and interpretive practices evolve over time.
Without explicit separation, changes in interpretation may appear to alter the meaning of previously reported information retroactively. Such coupling undermines:
FDIS-RA therefore treats the separation of interpretive concerns as a prerequisite for trustworthy and governable data interpretation rather than as an implementation choice.
A component may perform more than one responsibility within a particular implementation, but the architecture preserves the logical distinctions among those responsibilities and requires their inputs, outputs, authority, provenance, and version context to remain identifiable.
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