X3L8 Special Interest Group Meeting
Held at the National Institute of Standards and Technology
April 22-24, 1996
Attendees:
Bruce Bargmeyer, Environmental Protection Agency
Larry Fitzwater, Environmental Protection Agency
Alan Goldfine, National Institute of Standards and Technology
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
Frank Olken, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory
Judith Newton chaired the meetings.
The following reports the issues raised and decisions made:
1. X3L8 Metamodel for the Management of Sharable Data, ANSI X3.285
Paul Hawes led a discussion of the X3L8 Metamodel for the Management of Sharable Data, ANSI X3.285. Most of the meeting was spent on this topic. A few new issues were raised during the public comment period. Paul will record these for the issues list. He presented the changes made to the metamodel at the last meeting and received concurrence or comments on each change. Several issues on the list of open issues were resolved. These are recorded in the metamodel issues document, which is up on the FTP server (filename issue-mm) and is also available on the X3L8 home page. See below for details. It was also decided to make resolution of metamodel issues the main topic of business for the next SIG meeting in June. Other topics will be addressed during the WG4 meeting in June. See below for dates and places.
2. X3L8 FTP site
Alan Goldfine discussed the FTP site. He and Frank Olken have coordinated some changes in accessing documents from the X3L8 home page. We also discussed possible techniques for creating electronic discussions about various technical topics. In messages sent to the X3L8-news reflector, Doug Mann and John McCarthy have suggested a couple possibilities to explore. One of the issues to explore is whether or not the messages can be downloaded to a local computer for review or whether a person must be connected by LAN or phone connection to the Internet while reviewing messages. Members will look at the possibilities and see if we can find a mutually acceptable solution. The solution may or may not require adding software to the NIST server.
3. Date Standard
The date standard for electronic data interchange, ANSI X3.30 is up for five year review. Paul Hawes and Burt Parker have volunteered to rewrite the standard for public review. Their rewrite will specify only one representation, namely Gregorian Date CCYYMMDD (all numeric). We intend to drop the Ordinal date and the appendix in the current standard. The revision will be sent out for public review and go through the usual comment and ballot process. Paul will write the draft and Burt will handle the public comments, if any. Paul will prepare the draft and distribute it to X3L8 committee members via email for review at the X3L8 Plenary meeting June 12, 1996. Phong Ngo will handle the formal process of sending it from X3L8 to ANSI for public review. Comments will be sent to Burt, who will lead any resolution efforts that may be necessary.
4. Five year review of standards
Phong Ngo reviewed the list of active projects for X3L8. Some of the standards come up for five year review during next year. Phong will get copies of the standards and circulate them to the group.
5. GII/NII
Phong Ngo reviewed the email messages that we received on the GII/NII. Bruce Bargmeyer will send a response.
6. ANSI Information Infrastructure Standards Panel
Phong Ngo and Bruce Bargmeyer reported on the ANSI Information Infrastructure Standards Panel (IISP). Bruce and Phong both presented information about X3L8 work to different workgroups of the IISP. We will continue to work to include X3L8 standards into the work of the committee.
7. New Work Items
Phong Ngo discussed the first draft of the NWI entitled "Specification of Data Element Concepts". In developing the attributes, he found a number of issues that need to be addressed. One issue he raised is the need to show which data elements concepts (and their data elements) are related. This is important not only for well designed data, but also for legacy data. It may be possible to accomplish this through the classification mechanism. Judy Newton provided a copy of the latest version of the NWI entitled "Specification of data value domains". We will discuss both NWI documents at the WG4 meeting in May. See below for date and place.
16. Future meeting schedule
The SIG meeting tentatively scheduled for May 16-17, 1996 is canceled.
May 20-23, 1996 SC14/WG4 meeting in D.C. (BLS Conference Center)
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.)
September 11, NIST North, Room 201, Dining room C
September 12, NIST North, Room 201, Dining room A
September 13, NIST North, Room 210, Dining room C
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