The international standard BS EN ISO 7817-1:2024 has been published. It explains the concepts and principles of the level of information need framework. Dr Marzia Bolpagni, the standard’s lead author, explains the changes.
The level of information need framework was initially introduced in the ISO 19650 series in 2018 and further developed at European level with the standard BS EN 17412-1 in 2020. Due to the popularity of the topic, the European standard BS EN 17412-1 has now become an international standard BS EN ISO 7817-1:2024.
The European standard BS EN 17412-1:2020 has been withdrawn, so any time you are referring to the level of information need, you should use BS EN ISO 7817-1.
No substantial changes were made in BS EN ISO 7817-1 compared with BS EN 17412-1. The few changes that were made deal with alignment with terms and definitions, alignment with BS EN ISO 19650-4, and minor updates to the content of informative annexes. The relevant updates in sections and clauses of the standard have been presented in the FAQs section of the UK BIM Framework.
Since 2020 when the European standard was published, the level of information need framework has been adopted in the most advanced programmes and projects globally. However, if you are still not familiar with it, Guidance D of the UK BIM Framework provides indications on how to implement the standard in your projects.
The level of information need is moving away from using simple labels as “LOD/LOG/LOI”. When using the level of information need, clients (or any information receivers) should instead define their information need in a more specific way to allow effective information management.
Next steps
Now that BS EN ISO 7817-1 is published, what is next?
Part 2 and Part 3 of the ISO 7817 series are under development at international level (ISO) under European (CEN) lead. Part 2 will be a technical specification on guidance for application, while Part 3 will be a standard on a schema to enable a machine-readable definition of the level of information need framework. Watch this space!
Dr Marzia Bolpagni is the lead author of ISO 7817-1.
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