Residence

Information Dynamics

Organizations and, on a smaller scale, organizational units usually work from implicit assumptions. That is actually unavoidable in principle. What practically matters is the extent to which assumptions remain implicit. For such 'implicitness' directly carries over to information systems.

An example is the label of 'foreigner.' When your nationality is A but you are a resident of country B, then country B's government treats you as a foreigner. Your information is no doubt stored in a separate Foreigner Information System. However, in many of its dealings with you it really doesn't make any difference whether your are a foreign resident. For many other purposes information about you is stored in other information systems.

The metapattern suggests to recognize the relative nature of foreignership in several ways. The most important departure from current practice is abstract from the assumption of a specific country's government. Indeed, foreignership is really not an absolute measure. It is the outcome of a comparison. You are a foreigner when your nationality doesn't match country of residence. Someone from A is a foreigner in B. Likewise, someone from B is a foreigner in A.

Next comes up the question why registration of nationality and country of residence should be limited to persons where there is no match. Doesn't it make sense to record this information for all residents?

It right away becomes evident that exactly such information provides — part of — the basis for all sorts of government activity, not just for a government in relation to 'its' foreigners. What about all the different kinds of taxes? Isn't every tax in one way or another grounded on the concept of residence? Elections, and so on, and so on.

Then again, it is not only the government for whom residence is a central concept. An organization controls premises where its employees work, visitors (foreigners?) drop by, etcetera. It appears that still more variety in information can be served from a basic pattern of residence. Below, such a pattern is sketched. Please note that it is offered here as a start, not as the final word at all.

The terminology in the sample model is deliberately abstract as the concepts cover wide ranges. Affiliation, for example, can be understood as your nationality. Or, at a lower level of public governance, as the state or town you originate from. The idea of residence as modeled also supports that affiliation be interpreted, to mention just another example, as the organization you work for. The concept of jurisdiction offers similar opportunities for interpretation.

The residence pattern builds from One physical person, many personal identities. And jurisdiction may be considered a subset of Position.

See Metapattern Primer for a short introduction to the symbol language of the metapattern. Metapattern: context and time in information models (Addison-Wesley, 2001) provides a comprehensive explanation; the sample model presented here may be seen as an extension of a case study contained in that book's Introduction.