Preface Standards development within the Information Technology sector is harmonized with international standards development. Through the CSA Technical Committee on Information Technology (TCIT), Canadians serve as the SCC Mirror Committee (SMC) on ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee 1 on Information Technology (ISO/IEC JTC1) for the Standards Council of Canada (SCC), the ISO member body for Canada and sponsor of the Canadian National Committee of the IEC. Also, as a member of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Canada participates in the International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee (ITU-T). For brevity, this Standard will be referred to as \"CAN/CSA-ISO/IEC 19778-2\" throughout. At the time of publication, ISO/IEC 19778-2:2015 is available from ISO and IEC in English only. CSA Group will publish the French version when it becomes available from ISO and IEC. Scope 1.1 Statement of scope This part of ISO/IEC 19778 specifies the Data Model for a collaborative environment. The collaborative environment Data Model composes collaborative tools and declares their collaborative functions by specifying their names. These names can be used as references to collaborative tools and collaborative functions specified in detail by further specifications or standards. Where no such specifications or standards are available or identified, the provision of descriptions for human interpretation may support harmonized use of these names. 1.2 Subjects and aspects not currently addressed In future editions of this part of ISO/IEC 19778, extended support for adapting collaborative environments to preferences and needs of participants may be provided. Such support can be gained by prioritizing the collaborative effects (defining which collaborative effects are intended to be supported) in contrast to the collaborative tools and collaborative functions (defining by which technical provisions the intended collaborative effects are supported). 1.3 Excluded subjects and aspects Subjects and aspects not provided by this part of ISO/IEC 19778, but which it is anticipated will be provided by further specifications or standards include the following: the detailed specification of collaborative tools or collaborative functions (such specification is left to further specifications or standards and means service component harmonization which is excluded from this part of ISO/IEC 19778); the detailed specification of collaborative effects (such specification is left to further specifications or standards and addresses application modelling which is excluded from this part of ISO/IEC 19778); the specification of methods for integrating collaborative tools or collaborative functions into services (as this affects service modelling which is excluded from this part of ISO/IEC 19778).