INCITS/L8 ‑ Metadata
ANNUAL REPORT
June 2006 through June 2007
Doc
1. Executive
Summary
·
All the standardization activities within the past year for L8 are
in the international arena, as US TAG to JTC1/SC32/WG2, US TAG to JTC1/SC32/WG1,
and as a member group of CT22, the Combined TAG to JTC1/SC22, for the ISO/IEC
11404 project revision.
·
The most significant milestones of the year involve the progression
of the following international projects:
- ISO/IEC 20944 - Metadata registry
(MDR) interoperability and bindings
* All parts undergoing 3rd CD ballot
- ISO/IEC 11179 edition 3 revision – new CDs to
be issued this calendar year
- ISO/IEC 24706 - Metadata for technical
standards and specification documents
* Undergoing 2nd CD ballot
- ISO/IEC 24707 - Common Logic
* Undergoing FDIS ballot
·
Many projects at the international level achieved significant progress
during the past year.
·
Members of L8 are actively pursuing new members.
There are currently 12 active members in L8 and one advisory member.
·
L8 is maintaining an active liaison relationship with other INCITS
TC's, ISO TC's
and SC's, IEEE, W3C, and OMG. Other industry consortia and working groups are
also kept up to date.
·
The number of organizations implementing ISO/IEC 11179 is increasing. Several small software companies are marketing ISO/IEC
11179 implementations.
·
Weekly teleconferences to discuss technical issues began in November
2005. These are very successful for 2 reasons:
1) detailed notes on the conversation are distributed to everyone, and
2) the discussions require very little introduction to get everyone "up
to speed".
·
Business meetings are scheduled for 3 or 4 times per year. All other monthly and teleconference meetings are
strictly technical. Participation rates are
generally good.
2.
Significant Accomplishments
The following major accomplishments were achieved
by L8:
- Members of L8 are editors of the following projects, and the projects
were progressed as follows:
- ISO/IEC 11179 (Metadata registries) Edition 3
revision is open for all parts. Part 3 CD expected
later this summer. Other parts expected to
go to CD later this year.
- ISO/IEC 15944 (Business Agreement Semantic Descriptive Techniques) The 8 parts have progressed as follows:
Part 1 – IS
Part 2 – IS
Part 3 – Reopened - second CD expected 2007-12-01
Part 4 – FDIS ballot requested
Part 5 – FDIS ballot requested
Part 6 – FTDTR expected 2007-06-15
Part 7 – FCD expected 2007-06-15
Part 8 – Project split for this new part - CD expected
2007-12-01
- ISO/IEC 19773 (Metadata registries
(MDR) module) Consolidated into one document and completed 2nd
CD ballot
- ISO/IEC TR 20944 (Metadata registry
interoperability and bindings - All Parts) Consolidated into 5 parts
and all undergoing 3rd CD ballot
- ISO/IEC 24706 (Metadata for technical standards and specifications
documents) First CD ballot underway
- ISO/IEC 24707 (Common Logic)
Undergoing FDIS ballot
- ISO/IEC 11404 (General Purpose Datatypes)
Being edited prior to FDIS ballot, with expected announcement in July.
3.
Significant Challenges
a) L8 continues to try to recruit new members. Membership goes up and down due to many factors. Current members are very committed.
b) Liaison activities are increasing. TC184
and TC154 are new additions.
c) The premium on time continues to be a problem. We have many projects and too little time. Volunteer members too often use the voluntary nature
of their participation as an excuse not to do the work.
d) Corner cutting on the rules continues and is
a source of concern. Some members use their
position on the committee to blur the lines between their own positions
and those of the
4. Expected
Challenges
The increased workload creates the need for more
members. We continue to recruit and several
new members are close to joining.
Other INCITS subgroups that are involved with metadata
(L1, L3, H2, V2, V36, and others) within subject areas or technical domains
are important allies for L8. Close cooperation
will increase our understanding of metadata and its requirements, extent,
and usefulness. This helps us to keep current
and relevant.
Third edition of ISO/IEC 11179 will take a major
amount of time and resources from all members.
5.
Committee Activities
A. Previous Year's
Meetings
SC32 and SC32/WG2
October 2006 –
L8 Business and Technical
5 - 6 June 2006 - Information
Technology Industries Council,
13 - 14 July 2006 - Information
Technology Industries Council,
18 - 19 September 2006
- Information Technology Industries Council,
12 - 13 December 2006
- Information Technology Industries Council,
18 - 19 January 2007
- Information Technology Industries Council,
13 - 14 February 2007
- Information Technology Industries Council,
21 - 22 March 2007 -
Information Technology Industries Council,
25 - 26 April 2007 -
Information Technology Industries Council,
30 - 31 May 2007 - Information
Technology Industries Council,
Weekly Teleconferences
L8 conducts weekly teleconference
meetings for technical issues for 2 hours. The
meetings begin on Thursday afternoons at 1:00pm eastern time.
B.
Next
Year's Planned Meetings
SC22
24 – 28 September 2007:
SC32 and SC32/WG2
12 – 20 July 2007,
3 – 7 December 2007,
L8 Business
15 November 2007 - Information
Technology Industries Council,
Other meetings to be
determined
6. Liaison
Activities (All liaisons are
to L8)
INCITS/L1 and ISO TC
211 (GIS) - The spatial data metadata activities under L1 and TC 211 are
of interest to L8.
INCITS/V36 and ISO/IEC
JTC1/SC36 (Learning Objects) - Learning Technologies use metadata for resource
location.
ISO/IEC JTC1/SC25/WG1
(Home Electronics Systems) - Metadata is required to link controls to many
household appliances through a single interface.
ISO TC 37 (Terminology)
- Terminology deals with concepts, terms, classification, and concept structures. These are important for understanding the semantics
of data.
ISO TC 154 (Processes, data elements and documents in commerce,
industry and administration) - Two projects in TC 154 are using ISO/IEC
11179 to guide the technical development. Continued
dialog is a must.
ISO TC 184 (Industrial automation systems and integration)
- A project in TC 184 is using ISO/IEC 11179 to guide the technical development. Continued dialog is a must.
Object Management Group
(OMG) - OMG has a series of standards, such as the Meta-Object Facility
that describes metadata from an abstract point of view.
How the ISO/IEC 11179 registry specification fits into the MOF framework
and how ISO/IEC 11179 can describe the 4 levels defined under MOF are subjects
for continued discussion and learning.
World Wide Web Consortium
(W3C) - XML is fast becoming a preferred method for transferring or structuring
data and metadata for a wide variety of applications.
How XML elements and schemas are described by ISO/IEC 11179 metadata
registries is still under development. How
XML registries will interoperate with ISO/IEC 11179 metadata registries
is being developed. RDF, DAML/OWL, and other
knowledge representations are being used to test the ideas of the semantic
web. ISO/IEC 11179 is positioned as a support
for these languages.
Federal Metadata Managers
Consortium - The FMMC is an informal group of representatives from US federal
agencies that are implementing ISO/IEC 11179 metadata registries.
7. Membership
and Officers
Membership
Ashton Computing and
Management Consulting, LLC
Battelle Memorial Institute
Bureau of Labor Statistics
Data Foundations (Advisory)
Department of Defense,
DISA
Department of Defense,
National Security Agency
Environmental Protection
Agency
Farance Inc.
National Cancer Institute
Telcordia
L8 Officers
Chair - Daniel Gillman,
Bureau of Labor Statistics
International Representative
- Frank Farance, Farance
Inc.
A membership list from the Secretariat has been
added.
8. Future
Trends
Many organizations are
implementing ISO/IEC 11179 metadata registries. This
is not an easy task for an organization to attempt.
Metadata management is expensive, requires a large shift in thinking
within the organization, and takes a long time to implement correctly. Several small software consulting firms are selling
services to help organizations build metadata systems based on ISO/IEC
11179, and several vendors are marketing ISO/IEC 11179 conformant products.
These vendors built general registries that can be tailored to the needs
for each customer. Several organizations are
purchasing these services.
ISO/IEC 11179 is gaining
acceptance in the international arena, too. Organizations
representing statistics and social sciences, health care, environment,
space and aviation, transportation, and standards are involved.
The work of L8 continues
to attract attention across the country and around the world. Many organizations are following the work and are
in the process of implementing the standards. Several
members of L8 are asked to travel to other cities and countries to provide
expert advice on the use of ISO/IEC 11179.
As the Internet and the
World Wide Web are used more widely, metadata is becoming an increasingly
important subject. Many standardization or
accepted practice efforts are called metadata projects.
This fact places L8 at the center of a wide range of projects and
developments throughout all industries. The
semantic web, a large effort involving the W3C and academia,
will need to make use of ISO/IEC 11179 in the future.
L8 members are currently conducting research on ontologies to understand
how ontologies fit within the 11179 framework.
For the foreseeable future,
metadata will continue to be an important topic. How
objects are described usefully to people who need to find, understand,
and use them is an important area of research in industry, government,
and academia. L8 is at the center of new developments
in artificial intelligence, intelligent agents, ontology development, and
the semantic web.
The Federal Enterprise
Architecture's Data Reference Model is referencing ISO/IEC 11179 as part
of the framework. This means that every federal
agency within the
9. Other Administrative
Information
L8 does not collect funds. A financial statement is not applicable.
L8 tries to conduct meetings
electronically, especially using teleconference, and occasionally video
conference. This enables people outside