Abstract

Traceable material property data is maintained in a database and provided to users upon demand. Cohesive and logical definitions of material property datasets are provided that capture the different industry standard facets of a material property. Traceability information includes the manufacturer of the material, the source of the material, the property measuring authority, points of responsibility, facets and constraints of the measurement process. Attributes for dataset ownership and dataset access cost are maintained and only the dataset owner is allowed to update those attributes. The ability to control access to the dataset is provided to the data owner. A dataset's measuring authority is permitted to review and re-grade data. The ability to define groups of users is provided with a designated user having the ability to control group membership and set the group's policies with respect to access of datasets owned by any member of the group. The ability to transfer or trade ownership of data is permitted.