X3L8 Special Interest Group Meeting
Held at the National Institute of Standards and Technology
March 13-15, 1996
Attendees:
Bruce Bargmeyer Environmental Protection Agency
Larry Fitzwater Environmental Protection Agency
Bert Fossam Records Management Systems
Paul Hawes Bellcore
Joe Leahy Science Applications International Corporation
Doug Mann Pacific Northwest Laboratory
Judith Newton National Institute of Standards and Technology
Phong Ngo Science Applications International Corporation
Dave Patterson Records Management Systems
Jim Pipher DOD/DISA/Center for Software
Judith Newton chaired the meetings.
The following reports the issues raised and decisions made:
1. X3L8 members briefly gave an overview of the work of the committee to give some context of the meeting to new attendees.
2. Bruce Bargmeyer lead a discussion of the new draft of ISO/IEC 11179, Part 2, Classification for data elements. Classification issues were raised and discussed many times throughout the meetings. Suggestions were made for improvements to Part 2 and the X3L8 Metamodel for the Management of Sharable data. Bruce and Paul Hawes will work separately to align the terms and attributes with the Metamodel. A new draft will be prepared for by the end of March for circulation before the SC14\WG4 meeting in May.
3. We discussed an email from Jean-Paul Emard, which commented upon the X3L8 home page. He observed that the page was well done and had some suggestions as to proper committee nomenclature and proper distribution mechanisms. The committee will work to implement his recommendations. Phong Ngo will send a message to Jean-Paul to respond to the message we received. Frank Olken will be asked to remove the copyright notice and the links to International Standards from the home page.
4. Phong Ngo will arrange for a demonstration of the Excalibur Semantic Network at the April meeting
5. Alan Goldfine presented a proposed logical and physical structure for the email distribution lists. Next week he will send out a message describing the design and if there are no changes suggested, he will make the arrangements and do the work to implement it
6. Phong Ngo presented the DIS ballot version of ISO/IEC 11179, Part 6. It has been sent to the SC14 Secretariat for balloting. X3L8 members made the following suggestions for the DIS ballot on Part 6: Change title of Clause 5. to "Participants". Change title of Clause 5.1 to "Designation of Participants". General comment: check for style guide, e.g., only capitalize the first letter of the titles of clauses and subclauses.
7. Paul Hawes and Jim Pipher demonstrated Wordnet. We explored issues and ideas it raised in regard to our work in data classification. Wordnet is available on anonymous FTP: clarity.princton.edu/pub. Look under Wordnet.
8. We discussed the BSR project and the potential for working with people involved in the BSR. Bruce Bargmeyer will draft a note inviting interaction with key people working on the BSR. Paul Hawes will forward the final version through official channels.
9. We discussed the ISO Ballot ISO/IEC JTC 1 N 3945. The members present indicated their vote to Phong that they approve the NWI. Phong Ngo is collecting the member votes. X3L8 must collect votes from other standards committees as well.
10. Judith Newton arranged for a demonstration of a system for registration of "identifiers". The system is being developed at NIST. Don Libes of NIST gave us a presentation. His work is to be useful for data elements used in STEP. We found a strong common interest in the registration and data element aspects of his system and will try to establish a working relationship with Don's effort.
11. Judith Newton presented a draft of the document she is editing on Specification of Data Value Domains. She overviewed the document and in discussion with committee members developed a diagram for the paper. Several suggestions were made for changes. She will make the edits and provide the paper to Paul Hawes for distribution before the WG4 meeting.
12. Phong Ngo presented an outline draft of the document he is editing on Specification of Data Element Concepts. Comments and suggestions were made. He will prepare a new draft to be discussed at the next X3L8 meeting. A draft will be circulated internationally after Phong has made the edits requested at that meeting.
13. Doug Mann will check out possible Web based groupware that we may be able to use to develop concepts and explore issues. This could take the form of threaded email messages or a discussion database of some sort. We will attempt to utilize some such method for future communication.
14. Paul Hawes led extensive discussions of the Metamodel for the Management of Sharable Data. The discussions went late into the night. We resolved several issues and raised some additional ones. The revisions and additions are recorded in the and in the metamodel and the metamodel issues document. Doug Mann will translate the current version of the metamodel into NIAM. Paul lobbed a Metamodel bomb into the room as he left to run for the train. In the subsequent tumult we worked out some suggested changes to the metamodel. Joe Leahy is going to write up the suggestions and send them to Paul.
15. Phong Ngo called ITI to reschedule the June meeting to avoid an overlap with the DAMA Conference. He reserved the new dates, shown below.
16. Future meeting schedule
April 22-24, 1996 SIG meeting at NIST North, Room 201
May 16-17, 1996 SIG meeting at NIST North, Room 201
May 20-23, 1996 SC14/WG4 meeting in D.C. (BLS Conference Center)
Note Date change: June 10-12, 1996 at ITI (SIG meeting on June 12-13 and X3L8 Plenary on June 14)
September 11-13, 1996 at NIST North, room 201 (SIG meetings on September 11-12. X3L8 Plenary is September 13.)
Directions to NIST North: NIST North is Building 820. The address of this building is 820 West Diamond Avenue. Note that the building is located across the street from the main campus of NIST. Instead of turning onto Bureau Drive toward the main Gate of NIST, turn the opposite direction (North) onto Bureau Drive and take the second possible right turn to get to the NIST North building, The building has the name "NIST" on it in large letters. (From Interstate 270, driving North, take Exit 10, which loops under the freeway, and then turn RIGHT at the first stop light--this is the intersection of West Diamond Avenue and Bureau drive.)
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X3L8 documents, including this meeting report, are available via Anonymous FTP from speckle.ncsl.nist.gov. Change directory to X3L8 (X3L8 in lower case letters) and check the "readme" file for details. Many of the documents are also listed on the X3L8 Home Page http://www.lbl.gov/~olken/X3L8