INCITS/L8 ‑ Metadata
ANNUAL REPORT
September 2004 through May
2005
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 11179 - Metadata
registries
* Parts 5 and 6 passed FDIS ballot and will
be
published soon.
- ISO/IEC TR 20944 - Metadata
registry (MDR) interoperbility and
bindings
* All parts passed CD 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 14 active members in L8 and one advisory
member. Meeting participation is up.
·
L8
is maintaining an active liaison relationship with other INCITS TC's,
ISO TC's
and SC's, IEEE, W3C, and OMG.
·
The
number of organizations implementing ISO/IEC 11179 is increasing. Several small software companies are
marleting ISO/IEC 11179 conformant (Not Confirmed!) implementations.
·
The
Task Group was disbanded. Now L8 meets
around 3 times per year in Plenary sessions
and 9
times per year (2 days at a time) for technical sessions.
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 11179-1 ((Metadata
registries - Part 1: Framework)
2nd Ed. published
- ISO/IEC 11179-2 ((Metadata
registries - Part 2: Classification)
is about to go for FDIS ballot
- ISO/IEC 11179-4 (Metadata
registries - Part 4:
Formulation of data definitions) 2nd Ed. published
- ISO/IEC 11179-5 (Metadata
registries - Part 5:
Naming and identification) 2nd Ed. passed the FDIS
ballot and
will be published
- ISO/IEC 11179-6 (Metadata
registries - Part 6:
Registration) 2nd Ed. Published
- ISO/IEC 15944 (Business Agreement
Semantic Descriptive Techniques
- All Parts) All 5 parts are progressing
- ISO/IEC 19773 (Metadata
registries (MDR) module - All Parts) All parts have passed CD ballot
- ISO/IEC TR 20944 (Metadata
registry interoperability and bindings - All Parts) 12
parts are passed the CD stage
- ISO/IEC 24706 (Metadata for technical standards and
specifications
documents) WD is available and comments requested to
the editor
-
ISO/IEC 24707 (Common Logic) First CD
to be issued by the middle of June
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. Active
participation from L1/TC211 was
established. More active liaisons are
required.
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 participatioin as an excuse not to do
the
work.
d) Corner cutting on the rules is justified
by
members who hold out their continued participation on being able to
continue
the practice. This is becoming a major
challenge. Two major problems are
perceived voting blocks and one organization funding the participation
of
others.
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.
Satisfying the needs to further the research
work
needed by L8 with outside financial arrangements versus keeping the
standards
process clean is a major hurdle.
5.
Committee Activities
A. Previous
Year's Meetings
SC32 and SC32/WG2
April
2005 -
November
2004 -
L8 Plenary
Task
Group for Technical Development
4 -
8 -
10
-
9 -
23
-
12
-
B. Next
Year's Planned Meetings
SC32
and SC32/WG2
26
-
March
2006,
L8
Plenary
Other
meetings to be determined
Task Group for Technical Development
16
-
21
-
14
-
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.
Intelligent
Transportation Systems America and ISO TC 204 (Intelligent
Transportation) -
The ITS registry is based on principles defined in ISO/IEC 11179.
ISO
TC 37 (Terminology) - Terminology deals with concepts, terms,
classification,
and concept structures. These are
important for helping users of ISO/IEC 11179 registries find and
understand
registered items.
ISO
TC 215 (Health Care) - The health care community uses metadata to
describe
patient records and transfer health data among systems.
Health care registries based on ISO/IEC 11179
are under construction.
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 of
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 tes the ideas of the semantic web. ISO/IEC 11179 is positioned as a support for
these languages.
Federal
Data Registries User Group - The FDRUG 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
Department
of Defense, DISA (Advisory)
Department
of Defense, National Security Agency
Department
of the Interior
Department
of Veterans Affairs
Environmental
Protection Agency
Farance
Inc.
Global
e-Business Advisory Council
Knowledge Solutions, LLC
Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory
Michigan
State University
Mitretek
L8
Officers
Chair
- Daniel Gillman, Bureau of Labor Statistics
International
Representative - Frank Farance, Farance Inc.
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.
One large database vendor is marketing a business strategy whose
core is
the implementation of an ISO/IEC 11179 metadata registry.
Several small software consulting firms are
doing the same. Several small software
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 they 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
Fedral Enterprise Architecture's Data Reference Model is including
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,
occasional video conference, and Net-Meeting.
This enables people outside Washington to attend without travel. The time difference between the coasts has an
impact on the usefulness of these techniques.
Non-verbal communication, available to all the people in one
room, is
not available across a telephone. This
continues
to be a problem for L8.