DOC: V2/00-017
Date: December 19, 2000

Project: N/A
Ref. Doc: V2/00-003
Reply to: Bill LaPlant, V2 convener
 mailto:Bill.LaPlant@census.gov; blaplant@mindspring.com

MINUTES OF NCITS V2 PLENARY MEETING #2

Meeting Location:
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Lecture Room F, ADMIN (101) Building
Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899-0001

Meeting Dates:
Thursday, December 7, 2000 - 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM (EST) (Lecture Room F - Bldg ADMIN 101)
Friday, December 8, 2000 - 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM (EST) (Lecture Room F - Bldg ADMIN 101)

1. Call to Order - Meeting called to order at 9:15 AM by Bill LaPlant

2. Introduction of Members and Observers
[Note, (P)=Principal, (A)=Alternate, (L)=Liaison, (O)=Observer, (X)=Ex Officio]

2.1 Members attending (Ref: V2/00-SD-1 "Member list for V2")
• Mike Burks, AT&T (P) [by phone]
• Rex Lint, COMPAQ (P)
• Sharon Laskowski, Dept. of Commerce/NIST (P)
• Bill LaPlant, Dept. of Commerce/Census (A) - Convener
• Charles Sheppard, Dept. of Commerce/NIST (A)
• Shari Trewin, IBM (P)
• Nasser Ghazi, MICROSOFT (P)
• Margot Peet, MITRE (P)
• Joe Roeder, NIB (P)
• Connie Myers, ORACLE (P) [by phone]
• Mark Urban, PSINET (P)
• Gregg Vanderheiden, TRACE (P)
• Gottfried Zimmermann, TRACE (A)
• Al Gilman, TRACE (O)
2.2 Other Attendees
• James Kindrick, ERIM (O)
• Masahiko Kaneko, Microsoft {Visitor}

3. Approval of the Agenda (Ref: V2/00-011 - "Draft Agenda for Meeting #2 of NCITS/V2, 12/7-8/00)

The posted agenda was amended to include item "9.0 Discussion of scoping statement for v2". The amended agenda was adopted.  See attachment.

4. Approval of the Minutes for meeting #1 (Ref: V2/00-005 "Draft Minutes for Plenary Meeting #1 of V2, 10/11-13/00)")

The posted minutes were approved without change.

5. Review of Action Items

5.1 ACTION ITEM: LaPlant will provide a pointer to the voting record of NCITS on the V2 project proposal. [DONE]
5.2 ACTION ITEM: LaPlant and Roeder will make project scope document clearer. [Carry Over]
5.3 ACTION ITEM: Urban will furnish summary documents of his presentation at meeting#1.
The presentation is summarized in the minutes for plenary meeting #1. [DONE]
5.4 ACTION ITEM: LaPlant will contact Judy Brewer about the World-Wide Web Consortium (W3C) liaison. LaPlant spoke with Judy Brewer who requested a letter saying what is the overlap between V2 and WAI and other W3C areas and what type of expertise is wanted. [DONE]

5.5 ACTION ITEM: Sheppard will create reflectors at NIST for V2.  Urban noted that the help from NIST in providing the reflectors is invaluable. [DONE]
5.6 ACTION ITEM: Rideout, McCoy and Roeder will organize FAQ and V2website to make V2 effort more understandable.  Roeder reported that the V2 web site is up (Ref: http://www.ncits.org/tc_home/v2.htm). A FAQ document is pending. Vanderheiden volunteered to help with further work on the web site. [On-Going]
5.7 ACTION ITEM: Rideout will do security privacy liaison for V2. Laskowski volunteered to help via e-mail and asked that this action item be modified to report by posting to the reflector. [On-Going]
5.8 ACTION ITEM: LaPlant will keep V2 informed on Section 508 and related developments and activities. See section 7.1 of these minutes. [On-Going]
5.9 ACTION ITEM: ad hoc groups A and B work on assignments, report and come up with scope and requirements. See ad hoc Group Reports in section 8.1 of these minutes. [DONE]
5.10 ACTION ITEM: Roeder will identify ad hoc group members in minutes. See V2/00-005, "Draft Minutes for Plenary Meeting #1 of NCITS/V2, 10/11-13/00)." [DONE]
5.11 ACTION ITEM: LaPlant and Laskowski will communicate conference call information to ad hoc group leaders. [On-Going]

LaPlant further noted that Burks requested that he be allowed to participate by phone as a "reasonable accommodation" for his disability. Vanderheiden recommended that each request for participation by phone be considered case by case. We need to ensure people fully contribute and do not use phone participation only to vote. LaPlant remarked that V2 can operate with phone participation until told not to. The all NCITS standardization committee meetings needs to be "open."

Gilman urged that the participation rules be as recorded by the Convener and that the committee members debate them when we have the language of the rules.

5.12 ACTION ITEM: LaPlant and Urban will call group leaders bi-weekly. [DONE]
5.14 ACTION ITEM: Abrams to send presentation documents to Roeder. The presentations given by Abrams is posted under the "presentations" section of  http://www.harmonia.com/resources/index.htm [DONE]

There were several comments on efforts to enlarge assistive technology industry participation in V2.  LaPlant reported that the 508 consensus standards group may schedule their sessions to overlap with V2 meetings and this may facilitate participation of access technology vendors in V2.

Urban noted that V2 needs improve access technology participation and need a clearer definition of what V2 is doing. He spoke to access technology vendors at 5 conferences.

Vanderheiden reported that he is giving a presentation at the January ATIA conference. He will post his presentation materials to the reflector for comment.

Urban said this should be presented on ad hoc C.

NEW ACTION ITEM: Vanderheiden will post his ATIA presentation materials to the V2C reflector.

NEW ACTION ITEM: All on the V2C reflector will review and comment on the Vanderheiden ATIA presentation materials.

LaPlant reported that McCoy gave formal notice of EDAPTA withdrawal from V2.

EDAPTA was bought by Reef (Ref: http://www.reef.com). The new owner is working with W3C and doesn't want to pursue a second standards activity. McCoy is trying to explain these are different from w3c standards.

Trewin remarked that IBM had a similar position and thought V2 overlapped W3C.  While IBM cast a dissenting vote on creation of V2, IBM Does not have the reservation now.
  Vanderheiden noted that EDAPTA developed a lot of material with the ITA Study Group and there is some work that should be released to the standards body. After some discussions LaPlant said V2 has an obligation to address the issue. After notice from V2 there will be a memo from NCITS to ITI and the legal counsel for ITI will handle the matter. There needs to be a letter on file from the intellectual property rights (IPR) holder to say their intellectual property used in the standards are either in the public domain, or must state that a non exclusive license is available to anyone who wants it.

This may or may not involve royalties, but the intellectual property must be always available. The draft letters from V2 will be recorded documents and all V2 members will get to see it.

NEW ACTION ITEM: LaPlant will draft 2 letters to NCITS about copyright issues re EDAPTA and Stanford.

Vanderheiden asked if we need minutes kept in the work group for an archives.
LaPlant replied that the internal group documents do not have to be archived. Each group will provide reports to the plenary that contain the results of their work.  The ad hocs do not need to keep minutes, just the reports to the plenary that contain summaries at a level detail appropriate to results being reported.  These reports will be part of the permanent record (archives) of the committee.

Roeder reported on a note he received from NCITS staff about membership. NCITS has a 2 delegates rule that each member organization may have one principal and one alternate. Each additional  alternate is charged an additional participation fee.

LaPlant asked that everyone watch for the announcement of publication of the 508 standards in the federal register and post an alert notice to the reflector.

7. Review of Related Activities

7.1 Access Board Proposed Electronic and Information Technology

LaPlant reported that the 508 standards are still not published. The current target for publication is on or before January 15, 2001.

The sponsors of the Federal Universal Access Working Group are: Federal Information Services and Applications Council under the Inter-Agency Working Group on IT Research & Development Enterprise Interoperability Emerging IT Committee under the CIO Council.  A 508 coordinator is designated by the CIO for each government office. Government procurement people need to be kept informed. FAR changes will not take place until the 508 standards are published. Modifications to the FAR will
be completed 6 months after the 508 standards have been published.

GSA is funding a consensus standards activity for 508 and LaPlant is an interface to the Federal Advisory group of this activity. The effort is intended to provide more confidence that products comply with 508. The inaugural
meeting on consensus standards will be early to mid February.  (See discussion of ERIM under item 7.4.)

7.2 Web Accessibility Initiative (Ref: http://www.w3.org/WAI/ "Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) Home Page")

Here are the references Gilman provided:

XML Protocol http://www.w3.org/2000/xp

Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) Version 1.1 http://www.w3.org/TR/SOAP/

7.3 IEEE P2001 Web Engineering Best Practices Guidelines (Ref: http://computer.org/standards/Internet/index.htm "Internet Best Practices Standards Working Group ")

 for information on the standard.)

NEW ACTION ITEM: LaPlant will provide a link to the web engineering best practices meeting.  [DONE & OBE]

LaPlant said the meeting will provide document and there will be a usability check list which he will send out as part of his report. (See http://www.universalusability.org/about/template.html for the checklist and http://www.universalusability.org/about/uupolicy.html for an example.

NEW ACTION ITEM: LaPlant will include a pointer to the usability check list for the V2 minutes. [DONE]

7.4 Other

Vanderheiden remarked that even if users and vendors agree, if a government employee cannot use the product, he can sill file suit. However, if users and vendors accept the consensus standard, this will provides some weight in court.  This contract is because the government cannot legally certify what products comply with 508.

Kindrick added that the ADIT project can provide guidance, not a legal certification. It is a forum, a consensus-building, validation process. The kick off meeting is in February.

Lint asked about the conference with NIST. Laskowski replied that there will be a conference at NIST in May for industry. NIST is hoping for 200 people attending.

Lint noted that there is a GSA contract for a demo center. Bidders are now being evaluated. ITIA is putting together a course to train developers on accessibility requirements.

8. Presentations

8.1 Ad hoc Group Reports

8.1.1 Marketing Strategy

8.1.2 Ad hoc V2A

The group worked only on RC. They began with the requirements based on URCC (universal remote console and communications) from Trace.
NEW ACTION ITEM: Zimmermann will post the remote console standard requirements list (as it resulted from the plenary discussion) to the V2 work-def reflector

8.1.3 Ad hoc V2B

NEW ACTION ITEM: Urban will give document with McCoy's new model to Roeder  for minutes. (Ref: V2/00-014 "Second Work Document from ad hoc group B of plenary #1")

Vanderheiden expressed concern that the V2 standards not be design for the last generation of technology. The standard should be able to cover newer technologies that might become available in the near future.

8.2 Technical Presentations

8.2.1 A shared document management tool: the WikiWiki server

There was some discussion on how this might be used. The consensus seemed to be that this might be used as a collaboration tool for the ad hoc groups, but there needs to be a single editor in charge.

The WIKI tool was not considered appropriate For the plenary committee documents because every change needs to have consensus before they are incorporated. LaPlant noted that final standards document have a named editor.

9. Discussion of tasks and priorities

9.0 plenary discussion of scoping statement for V2

1. RFC 821 is a SMTP model. For user mail request, there is nothing about what is said or what is the connection, only that there is a request.  By analogy to mail, the user needs stamp, a recipient address, a return address. There are limits on size, weight, etc. there may be different process for handling big and small packages. A negotiation happens at the protocol level. Will the package be accepted, etc.

Using another analogy of state protocols, officials for different countries first meet to decide who talks first, who sits where, who talks to who, etc.

Protocols are definition, rules of the game, size of the playing field, etc.

Ghazi remarked that there is a set of rules, a set of entities, and how they interact.

Laskowski added that the V2 protocol must:
1. represent the capabilities of an interface,
2. provide ways to exchange that information, i.e., negotiation strategies, initialization, and
3. describe sending the data.

Kindrick said, in summary, the basic elements of a protocol are:
1. objects (e.g., devices)
2. states (e.g., ready to receive)
3. messages.

Lint noted the group is getting hung up on the term protocol. We should look at other mechanisms by which data is transmitted.

Zimmermann said protocol has different meanings and suggested we use the term 'standard'. A model is an image of reality. We have a model for state, for time, for content.

LaPlant noted there is a difference between program API and protocol. We are looking not at something between a program environment and an application, but a negotiation of how 2 objects will act together. The protocol includes a
data part that needs to be separately defined for other uses- i.e., for code sets in data environments for other protocols. He said the health community asked for information if we come up with applicable terms.

Kindrick said we should look at what are the messages that go between 2 objects, divide and classify them, then look at how fixed versus how extensible they are.  We need to home in on a common language.

Ghazi said there are requirements for 2 devices to transmit information and the result will transform the interface. A transmission have a start, a transmittal, and an end.. The transmission can reference other standards. The content
determines metadata, etc. What are the transformation requirements or state transformations?

Vanderheiden noted, as an example, that WAP protocol has several specifications.

Ghazi said we are dealing with a stack. Most elements of the stack are well known. Some layers of the stack are not complete and V2 needs to fill them in.

LaPlant suggested we use SMTP as an example because it shows many of the elements we need. WE want to have data specifications as a separate, expandable document.

Urban returned to the scope statement for AIAP, beginning with the terms of reference document on the UNIAC site.

Gilman gave examples of a control protocol. A crane with a 3 button control that has guards around the up and down buttons, but no guard on the stop button.  Another example is when someone buys something by phone, the transaction includes a review of all of the transaction because there is no shared buffer.

The discussion of the wording of the purpose and scope continued with Zimmermann taking notes on the changes made (Ref: V2/00-016 "preliminary Draft Scope"). LaPlant proposed, as an action item for everyone, that we accept the divisions of purpose and scope for now and word-smith the text on the work-def reflector.

NEW ACTION ITEM: All members word-smith the purpose and scope on work-def reflector by December 20.

NEW ACTION ITEM: Urban will be editor for the final wording of purpose and scope.

Burks said AT&T WorldNet will release 10 access devices to internet in first or second quarter of 2001. Burks agreed to take on an action item to provide more information.

NEW ACTION ITEM: Burks to provide more information about AT&T WorldNet access devices.

LaPlant noted there is a major standards effort to create a process to set up and maintain registries. V2 may want to have 1 or 2 projects to have tight liaison to those standards efforts.

9.1 plenary discussion of ad hocs A and C.

Another group, ad hoc V2C, will work on     narrowing the AIAP footprint on infrastructure outsides AIAP.  Gilman agreed to lead this group.

NEW ACTION ITEM: Roeder to post the list of ad hoc members.

The following is the posted list of ad hoc members plus other members that asked to be added.

V2A MEMBERS
Gottfried Zimmermann, group leader
Mike Burks
Nasser Ghazi
Sharon Laskowski
Kelsey Rideout
Charles Sheppard
Shari Trewin
Gregg Vanderheiden

V2C MEMBERS
Al Gilman, group leader
Mike Burks
Nasser Ghazi
Jim Kindrick
Bill LaPlant
Joe Roeder
Rex Lint
Shari Trewin
Gregg Vanderheiden
Gottfried Zimmermann

9.2 Working Sessions

Gilman reported that ad hoc V2C expressed 3 important points:
1. we need further separation of concerns,
2. applications learn about the environment from the operating system; AIAP should stay inside that channel to ensure industry buy-in,
3. AIAP should not try to have standard for some areas, such as some bottom segments of the layer stack.

Kindrick noted that examples help to clarify and commented on the diagram from ad hoc V2A (Zimmermann's thought strategies for human computer interface).

NEW ACTION ITEM: Kindrick will post on V2C reflector the diagrams for unifying factors.

NEW ACTION ITEM: Gilman will post the ad hoc V2C report to the V2C reflector.

Zimmermann reported that group V2A came up with 2 points:
1. work on taxonomy,
2. finalized requirements.

Sheppard summarized the effort Laskowski and he made looking for an existing taxonomy that fits the list of examples of devices developed in the first plenary work session. Following up on the suggestion by Baronas to look at the UN web site for taxonomy, they found just a products and services classification scheme which is in initial stages of development and based on the previous Dunn and Bradstreet system.

LaPlant said this is a UN extensions for UPC (universal product code) and that a similar one is being set up by the UN for disabilities. These may be useful models of rules for setting up a registry. We need to ask what is the underlying
data model and is it suitable for V2.

NEW ACTION ITEM: Sheppard and Laskowski will look further to determine if UN taxonomy model is appropriate for V2.

Zimmermann spoke about the ad hoc V2A draft of requirements. The draft is too preliminary to publicize because it includes some comments that are not requirements.

10. New Items.

Members will continue work via the reflectors per the action items.

11. Future Meeting Schedule

There was some discussions about having a west coast meeting and having a teleconference meeting. Urban recommended the next plenary be a teleconference, followed by a west coast meeting. He noted some members will be attending the CSUN conference (Ref: http://www.csun.edu/cod/conf2001/) which runs March 19-24, 2001, in Los Angeles. Ghazi offered to set up a Net Meeting teleconference through Microsoft.

LaPlant noted that if the next plenary is a teleconference, it must be open to the public. NCITS may or may not accept it as an official meeting. If the teleconference cannot be set up, the next plenary will be at NIST.

NEW ACTION ITEM: Ghazi will make arrangements for teleconferencing the next plenary meeting.

NEW ACTION ITEM: Urban will check conference room availability at CSUN IT Assistive Technology Conference.

NEW ACTION ITEM: Sheppard will check arrangements for a meeting room at NIST for the next plenary.

The next V2 meeting will be on Wednesday and Thursday, February 7-8, 2001.  The official announcement will indicate whether the meeting will be at the NIST campus in Gaithersburg, Maryland, or a teleconference.

12. Summary of Action Items

12.1 ACTION ITEM: LaPlant will provide a pointer to the voting record of NCITS on the V2 project proposal.
12.2 ACTION ITEM: LaPlant and Roeder will make project scope document clearer.
12.3 ACTION ITEM: Gilman will draft and post to work-def reflector a memo for W3C liaison letter saying what is overlap and type of expertise needed; and will coordinate with Urban.
12.4 ACTION ITEM: Rideout, Vanderheiden and Roeder will organize FAQ and V2 website to make V2 effort more understandable.
12.5 ACTION ITEM: Rideout will do security privacy liaison for V2 and post reports to the reflector.
12.6 ACTION ITEM: LaPlant will keep V2 informed on Section 508 regulations developments.
12.7 ACTION ITEM: LaPlant and Laskowski will communicate teleconference information to ad hoc group leaders.
12.8 ACTION ITEM: Zimmermann will post the remote console standard requirements list (as it resulted from the plenary discussion) to the V2 work-def reflector
12.9 ACTION ITEM: Vanderheiden will post his ATIA presentation materials to theV2C reflector.
12.10 ACTION ITEM: All on the V2C reflector will review and comment on the Vanderheiden ATIA presentation materials.
12.11 ACTION ITEM: LaPlant will draft 2 letters to NCITS about copyright issues re EDAPTA and Stanford.
12.12 ACTION ITEM: Gilman will provide Roeder with a reference to the XML protocol on the W3C web site.
12.13 ACTION ITEM: LaPlant will provide a link to the web engineering best practices meeting.
12.14 ACTION ITEM: LaPlant will provide usability checklist to Roeder for minutes.
12.15 ACTION ITEM: Urban will give document with McCoy's new model to Roeder for minutes.
12.16 ACTION ITEM: All members word-smith the purpose and scope on work-def reflector by December 20.
12.17 ACTION ITEM: Urban will be editor for the final wording of purpose and scope.
12.18 ACTION ITEM: Burks to provide more information about AT&T WorldNet access devices.
12.19 ACTION ITEM: Roeder to post the list of ad hoc members.
12.20 ACTION ITEM: Kindrick will post on work-def reflector the diagrams for unifying factors.
12.21 ACTION ITEM: Gilman will post the ad hoc V2C report to the work-def reflector.
12.22 ACTION ITEM: Sheppard and Laskowski will look further to determine if UN taxonomy model is appropriate for V2.
12.23 ACTION ITEM: Ghazi will make arrangements for teleconferencing the next plenary meeting.
12.24 ACTION ITEM: Urban will check conference room availability at CSUN IT Assistive Technology Conference.
12.25 ACTION ITEM: Sheppard will check arrangements for a meeting room at NIST for the next plenary.
12.26 ACTION ITEM: LaPlant will draft a policy for participation by telecommunications for consideration by NCITS/V2.
12.27 ACTION ITEM: LaPlant will provide a link to the web engineering best practices meeting.
12.28 ACTION ITEM: LaPlant will include a pointer to the usability check list for the V2 minutes.

Meeting #002 of V2 adjourned at 5:15 PM on Friday, December 8, 2000.
 

Send any comments on this document to mailto:jroeder@nib.org

ATTACHMENT - AGENDA AS MODIFIED AND APPROVED PER ITEM 3 OF PLENARY #2 MINUTES

Date: November 27, 2000
Project: Administrative
Ref. Doc:  V2/00-00011
Reply to: Bill LaPlant
Phone: 301-457-4887; 703-360-9184
email: bill.laplant@census.gov

AGENDA (Revised)
NCITS V2 IT Access Interfaces Technical Committee
Meeting Number 2

Location:
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Lecture Room F, ADMIN (101) Building
Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899-0001
301-975-3265 (Dorothy Snyder) or
301-975-4535 (Sharon Laskowski)

Meeting Dates:
Thursday, December 7, 2000 - 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM (EST) (Lecture Room F - Bldg 101)
Friday, December 8, 2000 - 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM (EST) (Lecture Room F - Bldg 101)

Meeting Registration: Register

1. Call to Order (Mr. William LaPlant - Convener)

2. Introduction of attendees.
Ref: V2/00-SD-1 Listof Members and Contact Information

3. Approval of the Agenda.
Ref: V2/00-00011   (this document)

4. Approval of the Minutes for meeting #1 ref: V2/00-00005 "Draft Minutes for plenary meeting #1 of V2, 10/11-13/00)"

5. Review of Action Items

5.1 ACTION ITEM: Mr. LaPlant will provide a pointer to the voting record of NCITS on the V2 project proposal.
5.2 ACTION ITEM: Mr. LaPlant and Mr. Roeder will make project scope document clearer.
5.3 ACTION ITEM: Mr. Urban will furnish summary documents of his presentation at meeting#1.
5.4 Action Item: Mr. LaPlant will contact Judy Brewer about w3c/wai liaison.
5.5 ACTION ITEM: mr. Sheppard will create reflectors at NIST for V2.
5.6 ACTION ITEM: Messrs. Rideout, McCoy and Roeder will organize FAQ and V2website to make V2 effort more understandable.
5.7 ACTION ITEM: Mr. Rideout will do security privacy liaison for V2.
5.8 ACTION ITEM: Mr. LaPlant will keep V2 informed on section508 developments.
5.9 ACTION ITEM: ad hoc groups A and B work on assignments, report and come upwith scope and requirements.
5.10 ACTION ITEM: Mr. Roeder will identify ad hoc group members in minutes.
5.11 ACTION ITEM: Mr. LaPlant and Ms. Laskowski will communicate conference information to ad hoc group leaders.
5.12 ACTION ITEM: Mr. LaPland and Mr. Urban will call group leaders bi-weekly.
5.14 ACTION ITEM: Mr. Abrams to send presentation documents to Mr. Roeder.

7. Review of Related Activities

7.1 Access Board Proposed Electronic and Information Technology Accessibility Standards ref: http://www.access-board.gov/sec508/508index.htm Proposed Standards for Federal Electronic and Information Technology (LaPlant)

7.2 Web Accessibility Initiative ref: http://www.w3.org/WAI/   Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) Home Page (LaPlant)

7.3 IEEE P2001 Web Engineering Best Practices Guidelines ref: http://computer.org/standards/Internet/index.htm
Internet Practices Standards Working Group   (Meiers)

7.4 Other

8.1 ad hoc Group Reports

8.1.1 Marketing Strategy (Urban)

8.1.2 ad hoc A (Zimmermann)

8.1.3 ad hoc B (McCoy)

8.2 technical Presentations

8.2.1 a shared document management tool: the WikiWiki server (Zimmermann)

9.1 plenary discussion of ad hocs B and C.

9.2 Working Sessions

11. Future Meetings

12. Summary of Action Items

13. Adjournment

Schedule

Thursday AM
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

Thursday PM
9

Friday AM
9 (continued)

Friday PM
9 (continued), 10, 11, 12, 13