One Hundred and Second Plenary and TAG Meeting

NCITS/L8 - Data Representation

Date: January 23, 1998 (The NCITS/L8 plenary meeting was preceded by NCITS/L8 SIG meetings held on January 21-22, 1998)

Place: Information Technology Industry Council (ITI)

1250 Eye Street

Washington, D.C.

Phong Ngo opened the meeting at 9:05 a.m.

1.0 Administrative Matters

1.1 Review of Minutes of Previous Meeting

The minutes were approved as revised.

1.2 Approval of the Agenda

The agenda was approved with modifications.

1.3 Membership attendance list and address list

The participants are listed in attachment 1. An address list was circulated for correction.

1.4 Officers

No action required on this item.

1.5 Document Distribution Report

Phong Ngo noted that L8 documents are on the L8 FTP/Website. See bottom of this document for Internet locations. We noted that JTC1 and SC32 also are now using the Internet to distribute documents. L8 is no longer sending out paper copies of documents. To access the documents, contact Phong Ngo (703) 908- to get a username and password.

2.0 Reports

2.1 Report on NCITS/L8 SIG meetings

Judith Newton and Dan Gillman gave a report on the work of the L8 SIG. The work has been very active. See the meeting reports on the L8 web /FTP site for complete reports.

The highlights included:

ISO/IEC 11179 Parts 1 and 2 were sent out for ballot

Discussed SC32 organization and prepared a draft response for use in establishing a US delegation position.

Began process of initiating a new work item proposed by Eliot Christian. The work is to cover the development of an interface specification for the Global Information Locator Service.

Organized a Metadata Workshop to be held in April. This is focused on use of ISO/IEC 11179 and DpANS X3.285 for data registration.

Discussed work underway in World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Resource Description Framework.

The Time and Date standards, under the editorship of Burt Parker, were progressed through the entire standards process to acceptance as ANSI standards.

Under editorship of Doug Mann, developed the material on DpANS X3.285 for public review.

Worked terminology issues and made a lot of progress in making terminology as consistent as possible between our many standards and standards proposals.

Met with Learning Objects Metadata Group/Instructional Management Systems on the potential use of ISO 11179 for managing educational objects.

Discussed the "National Metadata Infrastructure" effort and will try to find out more about it. We will investigate the possibility of engaging this activity. The contact is Brian Kahin in Office of Science and Technology Policy, Executive Office of the President.

Planned a workshop on registering the data elements in EDI messages. Representatives of the BSR production team will come from Europe to work with us on messages from the fields of transportation, healthcare, environment, Census/demographics fields.

Held a Holiday party. Special thanks to Phong Ngo and Karen Kirkbride for organizing the very successful event.

We met with representatives of DOD to discuss mutual concerns about the registration of metadata.

1998 was a very successful year. The members expressed thanks and appreciation to Phong Ngo, Judith Newton, and Dan Gillman for leading L8 and the L8/SIG during the past year.

2.2 Report on SC14/WG4 matters

This action in this item is now transferred to SC32. See below.

2.3 Liaison Report for NCITS K5 and Report on status of terminology

Doug Mann sent out a draft mapping of terms from ISO/IEC 11179 to DpANS X3.285. Members are asked to review this work. Progress was also made on resolving the terminology issues between the ISO/IEC 11179, DpANS X3.285 and other L8 documents.

Doug Mann met with K5 during January 1998. Doug learned that 25 percent of the ISO budget is spent on translating documents into French. There are primarily six countries that utilize these translations. ISO expects to drop the French translations within two years. Doug obtained a copy of the ISO vocabulary for information technology. This is being put on a server for standardization purposes. The ANDIS, the ANSI version of the vocabulary, is being put up in html.

2.4.1 - X3.50, Representation for US Customary, SI and other units

OMC has received the L8 request to transfer this standard to IEEE. Phong Ngo has heard that OMC wants more information on this. He has not yet received their request. The standard has been reaffirmed, so there is no problem with deadlines.

2.4.2 - X3.61, Representation of Geographic Point Locations

The standard was reaffirmed, OMC has agreed in principle to transfer it to L1, pending acceptance by L1.

2.4.3 - X3.145, Codes for Identification of Hydrologic Units.

The standard has been reaffirmed. Phong Ngo has made revisions in the SD3 to open a project for this standard. We are still identifying people who may be interested in working on this.

2.5 Liaison Report on X12/EDI activities (TBD)

Phong Ngo has talked to Sandy Paul, of SKP Associates, and Paul Levine, of Bellcore. They opposed the BSR project. The US position on the JTC1 BSR ballot will contain two views, the L8 view in support of the BSR as a registry of ISO Standards and the SC30 TAG view that the BSR should no longer be involved with EDI.

Doug Mann reported that Scott Nieman, of Connect Computer Company, was tasked with preparing the SC30 registry of components that SC30 will be modeling. Doug sent Scott and Paul Levine a copy of X3.285 as a recommended registry for the EDI components.

Doug Mann noted that some EDI implementation guides are available on the Web. These are for the Healthcare EDI messages mandated through the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Doug previously sent out the URL for this to the L8 reflector.

2.6 Liaisons Report NCITS T2

Doug Mann reported that T2 will hold a spring meeting in Hunts Landing, PA the 13-15 of May, 1998. L8 is invited to participate in their meeting and possibly co-locate a meeting there.

3.0 Status of Projects

3.1 Status of Data Element Classification and Attribution Project (X3 Project 399-DT and 400-DT)

ISO/IEC equivalent standard 11179 (Parts 1-6)

Dan Gillman reported that Part 1 is out for final CD ballot. Ballot comments were developed during the SIG meeting. The comments primarily affect terminology. Dan moved that L8 vote to approve the final CD ballot with comments. Bruce Bargmeyer seconded the motion.

Motion passed. Passed: 7-0-0-11 (yes-no-abstain-total members)

Bruce Bargmeyer reported that Part 2 was sent to Marisa Topping for circulation as final CD.

3.2 Status of NCITS/L8 Metamodel for the Management of Shareable Data (X3.285)

The version dated October 13, 1997 went out for public review on December 5, 1997. The comment period lasts 60 days. The new version is on the L8 web/FTP site. Doug has nearly completed an html version that is more easily viewable.

3.3.1 Revised X3.30, Representation of Date for Information Interchange

Burt Parker reported on the status of this work item. This standard went to the publisher in December and will be published as a booklet listing the people involved in the development of the standard, along with the standard itself.

3.3.2 Project X3.310, Representation of Time for Information Interchange superseding

X3.43, Representation of Local Time of Day for Information Interchange and X3.51, Representation of Universal Time, Local Time Differentials, and U.S. Time Zone References for Information Interchange

Phong Ngo sent this to NCITS with the L8 approval. The next step in this is editing and publication.

3.3.3 ISO/IEC/JTC1 TR NP: Specification of Data Element Concepts

We are holding action on this until further developments in SC 32.

3.3.4 ISO/IEC/JTC1 TR NP: Specification of Data Value Domains

Judith Newton reported that the CD ballot closed on January 16, 1998. We have not heard the results.

3.4 Other ANSI standards due for review by NCITS/L8:

This was covered in item 2.4, above.

4.0 IR Activities

4.1 L8 and JTC 1/SC 32

The SIG proposed comments on document ISO/IEC JTC1/SC32 N00045. The comments were revised during the plenary session. The document is attached along with the votes on various sections of the document.

The following were nominated to be delegates at the February 23-25, 1998 SC32 planning meeting to be held at NIST.

Delegates:

4.2 IR Responses to ANSI through ITI

No Action

4.3 JTC1 Workshop on Registration of Metadata

The workshop will be held April 15-17, 1998 at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2 Mass Ave, Washington D.C. See SIG minutes for details.

4.4 Role of Basic Semantic Repository

L8 voted to support the resolution of the Berkeley Workshop.

An informal meeting between members of L8 and the BSR production team will be held March 2-6, 1998 at NIST.

5.0 New Business

5.1 Membership

The revision of the HUC codes may attract new participants interested in this work. Eliot Christian is beginning the process of creating an SD3 for work on the Global Information Locator Service. This may attract participants for this work. 

5.2 Proposed new name and scope for L8

This may be linked to the SC32 actions. We will consider this at the next L8 meeting.

The current proposal is:

Title: Data Semantics and Metadata (DSAM)

Scope: To develop standards for the specification of the semantic content of data and metadata, independent of implementations. This is to promote understanding, coherence, and sharability of data over time. Major areas of concentration include data concept specification, metadata management, and metadata registration.

5.3 L8’s role in the new alignment with JTC 1/SC 32

This was covered in our response to ISO/IEC JTC1/SC32 N00045.

5.4 Metadata Workshop

The workshop will be held April 15-17, 1998 at BLS. The program is being organized in ongoing work. See the SIG meeting report for details.

6.0 Future Meeting Schedule

February 20, 1998 (a couple hours). Meet with SC30 WG1 to discuss potential common interests.

February 23-25, 1998, SC 32 planning meeting at NIST

March 2-6, 1998 EDI message meeting with BSR Production team at NIST

April 1, 1998 L8 SIG at NIST

April 15-17, 1998 Metadata Workshop at Bureau of Labor Statistics

May 13-15, 1998 with NCITS T2 in Pennsylvania

June 10-12, 1998 L8 & SIG at NIST

October 14-16, 1998 L8 & SIG at NIST 

7.0 Adjournment

Phong Ngo adjourned the meeting at 1:40 p.m.

Attachment 1

List of Attendees

Bruce Bargmeyer, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Dan Gillman, Bureau of the Census

Douglas Mann, Battelle

John McCarthy, LBNL

Judith Newton, National Institute of Standards and Technology

Phong Ngo, Science Applications International Corporation

Burton Parker, Paladin Integration Engineering

Andy Schoka, MITRETEK

-----------------------------------

X3L8 documents, including this meeting report, are available via Anonymous FTP from sdct-sunsrv1.ncsl.nist.gov. Log in as anonymous, use your email address for a password, Change directory to X3L8 (X3L8 in lowercase letters). Read the "readme" file for a listing of filenames and a brief description of each file. Many of the X3L8 and SC14 documents are also listed on the X3L8 Home Page http://www.lbl.gov/~olken/X3L8