personelem

Personelem is a term used in information modeling to describe a discrete data element that encodes information about an individual within a larger data structure such as a database row, a JSON or XML payload, or an ontology. The term is not a formal standard; rather, it is a descriptive shorthand used in discussions about how to represent persons in structured data.

A typical personelem aggregates fields such as an internal identifier, givenName, familyName, fullName, dateOfBirth, gender, contactPoints (including email or phone), address, affiliations, and roles. In practice, the exact field set varies by schema, and some implementations separate identity (id) from descriptive attributes.

Personelem is commonly mapped to established person representations in existing standards. For example, a personelem could correspond to a FOAF:Person in the FOAF vocabulary, a schema.org Person, a vCard, or an LDAP person object class. The term helps discuss portability and normalization without committing to a specific standard.

Applications include data modeling for enterprise systems, API payload design, metadata schemas, and identity management workflows. Advantages include clarity about the concept of a person as a data unit; disadvantages include potential ambiguity about exact fields and privacy considerations when exchanging personal information across systems.

See also: FOAF, schema.org Person, vCard, LDAP, identity management, data modeling.