UNSPSC

UNSPSC is the acronym for the United Nations Standard Products and Services Code. UNSPSC is a coding system to classify both products and services for use throughout the global eCommerce marketplace. The UNSPSC was jointly developed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Dun & Bradstreet Corporation in 1998. The current version consists of more than 22,000 terms.

The management and development of the UNSPSC Code is coordinated by GS1 US, formerly the Uniform Code Council (UCC). The UNDP appointed GS1 US code manager in May 2003. The code manager is responsible for ensuring compliance with the principles of the UNSPSC as well as the integrity of the code schema. GS1 US is responsible for overseeing code change requests, industry revision projects, issuing regularly scheduled updates to the code, communications with members, as well as special projects and initiatives as determined both by the UNDP and member requests.

The codeset is available in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Dutch, Chinese, Portuguese and Danish. PDF versions of the codeset can be downloaded for free at the [http://www.unspsc.org/CodeDownload.asp?pageid=4 UNSPSC.org] website. Excel versions of the codeset are available for a nominal cost.

Complete information about the UNSPSC is available at [http://www.unspsc.org UNSPSC] .

An interesting part of UNSPSC is its potential contribution to the Semantic Web, by means of formalizations into ontologies (by OWL and RDF schemas. It can be also related to UDDI, adding new potential to web services.

External links

* [http://www.unspsc.org/ United Nations Standard Products and Services Code Homepage]
* UNSPSC FAQs: [http://www.unspsc.org/FAQs.asp#WhatistheUNSPC United Nations Standard Products and Services Code]
* Papers [http://www.unspsc.org/documentation.asp White papers describing UNSPSC use]
* Paper [http://www.heppnetz.de/files/IJSWIS-eclassOWL-APA-Style-2005-final-11-17-Web.pdf Products and Services Ontologies: A Methodology for Deriving OWL Ontologies from Industrial Categorization Standards] , Int'l Journal on Semantic Web & Information Systems (IJSWIS), Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 72-99, January-March 2006.
* Paper [http://www.heppnetz.de/files/hepp-de-bruijn-ESWC2007-gentax-CRC.pdf GenTax: A Generic Methodology for Deriving OWL and RDF-S Ontologies from Hierarchical Classifications, Thesauri, and Inconsistent Taxonomies] , Proceedings of the 4th European Semantic Web Conference (ESWC 2007), June 3-7, Innsbruck, Austria, in: E. Fraconi, M. Kifer, and W. May (Eds.): ESWC 2007, LNCS 4519, Springer 2007, pp.129-144.
* Paper [http://www.heppnetz.de/files/hepp-leukel-schmitz-QuantitativeAnalysis-KAIS-Web.pdf A Quantitative Analysis of Product Categorization Standards: Content, Coverage, and Maintenance of eCl@ss, UNSPSC, eOTD, and the RosettaNet Technical Dictionary] , Knowledge and Information Systems (KAIS), Springer, DOI: 10.1007/s10115-006-0054-2, 2007.
* [http://www.freshinternational.com/ Assign UNSPSC codes to products and services]