9. A method as claimed in claim 8 further expanding default data definition rules, steps comprising: identifying keywords corresponding to tokens in the data item name, and displaying in the order of the naming convention, viz. prime word, one or more qualifiers, class word, class word modifier; entering missing keywords corresponding to tokens, supplying prime word and class word, and additional words to complete the name; for each additional word, entering a standard abbreviation; for each new prime word, entering a corresponding logical data group, and supplying a description of the logical data group; for each new class word, entering default characteristics, including language representation rules, data type, screen and report format, value range; committing the data element definition in the Data Element Dictionary and the data item cross-reference in the Support File.
8. A method as claimed in claim 1 wherein the step of proposing further comprises the steps of creating, by the user, a short description of upto 10 lines of 40 characters; specifying, by the user, a name using a naming convention; specifying, by the user, data types based on domain; specifying, by the user, language representations based on templates; expanding default data definition rules where necessary.