Meeting Report
X3L8 Special Interest Group
Held at the National Institute of Standards and Technology
April 1, 1998
Attendees:
Bruce Bargmeyer, Environmental Protection Agency
Eliot Christian, US Geological Survey
Larry Fitzwater, Environmental Protection Agency
Dan Gillman, Census
Henry Heffernan, EDPNS
William Kenworthey, Jr., Self
Doug Mann, Pacific Northwest Laboratory
John McCarthy, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (by phone)
Judith Newton, National Institute of Standards and Technology
Phong Ngo, Science Applications International Corporation
Frank Olken, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (by phone)
Andy Schoka, Mitretec Systems
Tom Wason, University of North Carolina
The following is a report of the topics addressed and the agreements made.
Dan Gillman and Judith Newton chaired the meeting.
1. Revised X3.30, Representation of Date for Information Interchange
Judith Newton stated the date standard is now published and available from ANSI.
2. Metadata Registries Workshop
We reviewed the arrangements for the Workshop, which will be held April 15 - 17, 1998. The room will hold 45 - 50 persons in a classroom seating arrangement (with tables). Between persons who registered and people such as speakers, who we know are coming, we are near capacity.
We accepted for participation all who registered for the workshop and will continue to accept registrations until we have reached capacity. A notice will be prepared by Bruce Bargmeyer and sent by Jennifer Burton to each registrant, with information about the workshop.
We reviewed the time allotments for each of the presentations. A revised agenda will be prepared by Robert Lewis and will be posted on the Workshop website.
Bruce Bargmeyer and Dan Gillman contacted the BLS Conference center and arranged for a computer with Internet connections and Office '97 + browser to be available in the presentation room with a projection unit for speakers and another similarly configured computer to be available in a breakout room for individual demonstrations. Analog telephone lines will also be available for persons wanting to connect to the Internet with laptops.
Workshop speakers are to bring 50 copies of any handouts they wish to distribute, including copies of draft standards. Copies of the presentation materials can be placed on the L8 FTP site for electronic distribution.
3. Joint L8 - T2 meeting.
The L8 SIG will meet together with NCITS T2, Data Interchange. We will talk about a possible merging of the committees. The meetings will be held Wednesday through Friday (noon), May 13-15, 1998, Best Western Hunt's Landing Hotel, Hunt's Landing/Matamoras, PA
HOST
Mr. Murray Freeman, FOSI, Ltd.
x3t2mf@ptd.net
HOTEL
The meetings will be held in a meeting room at the hotel. A block of rooms
has been set aside for T2 and L8 participants from Tuesday night May 12 to Friday
May 15. Rates are $59/night single, $67 double, and a government rate $50
(government ID will be required to get this rate), all plus 6% PA sales
tax. A continental breakfast is included in the room rate. The block will
be held UNTIL APRIL 12, 1998 -- those making reservations after that date
may be subject to higher rates.
The Best Western can be reached by phone at 717.491.2400 and by fax at
717.491.2422. Use "NCITS" or "NCITS/T2" to identify the group.
AIRPORTS
The nearest commercial airport to the meeting site is Stewart International
Airport at Newburgh, NY (SWF), about a 40-minute drive away. The most
convenient major airport, having many direct flights from the West Coast,
is Newark International (EWR), an hour and a half drive from Hunt's
Landing. An alternate is the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton airport (AVP), a little
over an hour away. New York's Kennedy and LaGuardia airports are farther
away, but provide additional options, as does Philadelphia's airport,
farther away still.
DRIVING DIRECTIONS
To drive from the Newburgh airport (SWF) to the Best Western -
- follow signs to I-84 westbound;
- follow I-84 to the first Pennsylvania exit (#11 at Matamoras) and turn
left at the traffic light at the end of the ramp;
- go to the second traffic light (past the underpass) and turn left;
- follow the sign to hotel parking.
From Newark airport (EWR) -
- take the NJ Turnpike (I-95) north to exit 15W, The Oranges (caution - NJ
is one of the few states which has decided to retain the 55 mph speed limit);
- follow I-280 westbound to I-80 westbound;
- follow I-80 westbound to exit #34, NJ-15 north to Sparta;
- follow NJ-15 north to Route 206 north;
- follow Route 206 north, over the toll bridge (.50) into Pennsylvania, and
turn right at the traffic light in Milford, onto Routes 6 east/209 north
(note the 25 mph speed limit has occasionally been used to set up speed traps);
- continue about 7 miles on Routes 6E/209N and turn right to the Best Western.
ALTERNATIVE TRANSPORTATION
For those traveling by air but not wishing to rent a car, taxi service from
the Newburgh airport to the Best Western is available for $60 (call Milford
Taxi, 717.296.8294, or Orange Express Taxi, 914.561.5000), and from the
Newark airport for $95 (call Milford Taxi, 717.296.8294).
For those preferring not to fly or drive, the Short Line bus company
provides four runs a day (on weekdays) from the Port Authority Bus Terminal
in New York City to the Best Western - Hunt's Landing. The trip takes a
little over three hours; call 800.631.8405 for scheduling and fare
information. The Port Authority terminal is a short taxi ride away from the
two main NYC railroad stations.
AMENITIES AND LOCAL AREA ATTRACTIONS
The Best Western provides the usual large hotel/motel amenities (restaurant,
bar, gift shop, etc.) and the food is generally good. The host will provide a
list, however, of alternate places to eat and drink for those seeking variety.
The area is historically interesting, and this year several anniversaries
are being celebrated: the sesquicentennial of the local Roebling
aqueduct/bridge, the centennial of the closing of the Delaware and Hudson
Canal, and the bicentennial of a local township, among others.
Of most interest to the ontology ad hoc group, however, is C. S. Peirce's home
"Arisbe", only about a mile from the Best Western, to which the host is
trying to arrange a visit.
The local Pike County Historical Society has some C. S. Peirce material as
well as other interesting items.
Agenda Items for the L8 SIG meeting on Wednesday May 13 will include
Collaboration on terminology for data descriptions
SC 32 topics
WG2 convenership
WG2 Scope
New Work Items for SC32
XML tags for data registry
Thesaurus/ontology/taxonomy stds (e.g., biological organisms)
Data object registration
If rides are needed to get to the meeting from Washington, D.C., contact Doug Mann, Bruce Bargmeyer or Larry Fitzwater (telephone numbers are on the L8 website, see below).
4. Prep of NWI
We discussed the potential New Work Item for a Global Information Locator Service standard or technical report. Eliot Christian will prepare a draft New Work Item. We hope to circulate this for discussion at the SC 32 /WG 2 meeting in Brisbane, Australia (see below).
Andy Schoka will send Eliot a reference to the ISO template for a New Work Item.
Phong Ngo will send the SC32 US TAG a note about the proposed New Work Item
5. SC 32
Bruce Bargmeyer reported on the SC 32 planning meeting held at NIST in February. The work most closely related to the work of L8 will take place in SC 32 Working Group 2, Metadata. Joe Christensen of Australia is serving as interim convener for WG 2.
The first meeting of SC 32 and WG 2 will be held in Brisbane, Australia, during the week of July 6, 1998.
Bruce Bargmeyer and Doug Mann will work on email reflectors for SC 32, WG 2 and the US TAG to SC 32. They will try to get the rest of L8 members on the 32 TAG reflector and will try to get X3L8-news on an informal SC32 reflector, and on a WG 2 informal reflector.
The US has a strong interest in providing the convener for WG 2. This will be the focal point for much of the US work. The other convenerships are held by other countries, so there is not a problem of US dominance among the SC 32 WG's.
5. Instructional Management Systems
Tom Wason reported on work related to tiered repository systems--hierarchical or federated repositories. This work has identified the need to better tie taxonomic information to metadata repositories. Such work may be potential New Work Items for L8 and SC 32.
6. Basic Semantic Registry (BSR) (Renamed from Basic Semantic Repository)
ISO TC 154 has requested that the US propose a person to be on the group reviewing offers to provide a platform for the BSR. A volunteer is needed.
ISO TC 154 also requested the USEPA to submit an offer for provision a platform for the BSR.
ISO TC 154 passed a resolution for creating a new ISO TC, combining TC 154 as well as the former JTC 1/SC 14 and JTC 1/SC 30. No interest in leaving the JTC 1 committee has been found among US participants in the former SC 14.
8. X3.285 Metamodel for the Management of Sharable Data
This is out for public review. Comments are due by April 15, 1998
9. Review of 11179 work in healthcare and transportation
DoD Health Affairs is getting a copy of the EPA data registry software and will implement it at the Brooks Air Force Base to support HCFA, DHHS, Health Affairs. As this work proceeds, there is likely to be growing collaboration between the environmental and the healthcare data registries.
IEEE is developing P1489 for the Intelligent Transportation System. P1489 extends 11179. This is now a draft that was released for public review last October. Some of the comments have lead to a separation of the data element attribute definition part of the standard from the data registry work. It is a challenge to bring these together again. The chairperson of the IEEE committee has just resigned, a new volunteer is needed.
Frank Olken and John McCarthy reported on the work they are doing with the W3C RDF schema working group and on the XML 98 Conference held during March in Seattle. We discussed various aspects of data registry content that we would like to see included. We are particularly interested in including the capability to reference the metadata in data registries. Frank and John are working on a presentation that John will give at the Metadata Registries conference to be held in April.
March 2-6, 1998 at NIST - Meet with BSR production team
April 15-17, 1998 at Bureau of Labor Statistics Conference Center - Metadata Workshop
May 13-15, 1998 at Hunt's Landing Pennsylvania - Joint L8 - T2 meeting.
June 10-12, 1998 at NIST North Room 501 - L8 SIG and Plenary
July 6-11, 1998 SC 32 and SC 32/WG 2 at Brisbane, Australia
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 sdct-sunsrv1.ncsl.nist.gov. Change directory to X3L8 (X3L8 in lowercase letters) and check the "readme" file for details. Many of the documents are also listed on the X3L8 Home Page. The URL is http://www.lbl.gov/~olken/X3L8". If you have questions or comments on this document send email to bargmeyer.bruce@epamail.epa.gov.