JTC 1 or SC Business Plan

 

BUSINESS PLAN FOR JTC 1 or JTC 1/SC32

 

PERIOD COVERED:

September 2004 to April 2005 with Chairman’s remarks to September 2005

The time frame to which this submission/update relates, indicating the month and year in full (from - to).  This time frame would normally cover the period between plenary meetings of JTC 1 or of the SC to which this business plan applies.

The Business Plan was approved by the SC 32 committee in Berlin on  2005-04-22  (SC 32N1273 – Berlin Resolutions).

 

SUBMITTED BY:

Bruce Bargmeyer ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 32 Chairman

 

1.0     MANAGEMENT SUMMARY

1. 1    CHAIRMAN'S REMARKS

SC 32 participants are making rapid progress on a wide range of projects as shown below. The standards range from relatively mature technologies to emerging technologies. Participants range widely from major vendors, to academe, and users, including government agencies. Contributions from continents other than North America are growing increasingly stronger, which is beneficial to the quantity and quality of the standards. These strengths stand against substantial risks of shifting priorities and support within participating organizations as well as competition from other standards organizations.

SC 32 WG 2 is moving quickly to develop a third edition of ISO/IEC 11179, with the intent to extend metadata registry capabilities to register and manage semantics. It is also developing a series of standards that comprise a Framework for Metamodel Interoperability. Substantial efforts are being made to align these standards within SC 32 and between WG 2 and OMG, through a series of liaison meetings. These standards represent thrusts to lead the development of emerging technologies in these areas. In addition to the standards specifications, prototype systems are being built to confirm the validity of the standards specifications.

 

1.2     JTC 1 SC32 STATEMENT OF SCOPE

JTC 1/ SC 32

Title:   Data Management and Interchange

Area of Work: Standards for data management within and among local and distributed information systems environments. SC 32 provides enabling technologies to promote harmonization data management facilities across sector-specific areas.  Specifically, SC 32 standards include:

1) reference models and frameworks for the coordination of existing and emerging standards;

2) definition of data domains, data types and data structures, and their associated semantics;

3) languages, services and protocols for persistent storage, concurrent access, concurrent update and interchange of data; 

4) methods, languages, services and protocols to structure, organize and register metadata and other information resources associated with sharing and interoperability, including electronic commerce.

JTC 1/ SC 32/WG 01

Title:   e-Business

Area of Work: Standardization in the field of generic information technology standards for open electronic data interchange needed to attain global interoperability among the information technology systems used by organizations.  Such interoperability is viewed from both business and information technology perspectives.

Within this context the scope includes:

1  methodology and framework for identification and modelling of business activities through business scenarios and their components, such as roles, information bundles, and semantic components;

2  identification and specification of formal description techniques for describing classes of business requirements and their contextual and semantic specifications;

3  identification and specification of formal description techniques for developing business scenarios and their components;

4  identification and specification of information technology services and service interfaces for accomplishing business transactions;

5  identification and specification of facilities to manage business scenarios and their.

 

Note: Priority is on work required to support the needs of electronic commerce, electronic administration, electronic business, etc.  The basis of work is the Open-edi Reference Model (ISO/IEC 14662).  This Group will be renamed to "eBusiness".

 

JTC 1/ SC 32/WG 02

Title:   Metadata

Area of Work: To develop and maintain standards that facilitate specification and management of metadata. Use of these standards will enhance the understanding and sharing of data, information and processes to support, for example, interoperability, electronic commerce and component-based development.  The scope shall include:  

a)  a framework for specifying and managing metadata;  

b)  specification and management of data elements, structures and their associated;  

c)  specification and management of value domains, such as classification and code schemes;  

d)  specification and management of data about processes and behaviour;  

e)  facilities to manage metadata, for example: data dictionaries, repositories, information resource dictionary systems, registries and glossaries;  

f)  facilities to exchange metadata, including its semantics, over the Internet, intranets and other media.

 

JTC 1/ SC 32/WG 03

Title:   Database Languages

Area of Work: The terms of reference of ISO/IEC JTC1/SC32/WG3 Database Languages are:

1. To develop and maintain languages for the dynamic specification, maintenance and description of database structures and contents in multi-user environments. The specifications may include the data type, behaviour and any integrity constraints on the contents of the defined structures. The specifications may include mechanisms for the creation and generation of new data types and behaviours so as to support the specification of other international standards.

2. To provide additional support for the integrity of database systems through transaction commitment, recovery, and security facilities.

3. To develop and maintain languages which provide for the storage, access and manipulation of data in database structures by multiple concurrent users. These languages may be computationally complete and may contain features for the packaging and storage of modules and procedures in database structures.

4. To provide interfaces for the languages developed to other standard programming languages.

5. To provide interfaces or access to other standards describing data types, behaviour or database content to users of the languages developed.

 

JTC 1/ SC 32/WG 04

Title:   SQL Multimedia & Application Packages

Area of Work: To specify packages of abstract data types for use in various application areas. Specify each package of abstract data type definitions using the facilities for user-defined type provided in the Database Language SQL/Foundation. This should include packages such as Full-Text, Spatial, Still Image, Still Graphic, Animation, Full Motion Video, Audio, Seismic, and Music.

 

 

1.3     PROJECT REPORT

http://jtc1sc32.org

1.4     CO-OPERATION AND COMPETITION

A complete listing of SC 32 liaisons is listed in the following tables.  SC 32 is continually reevaluating its liaisons and assessing areas of internal and external cooperation and competition.  SC 32 has requested JTC 1 to remove the liaisons that have not expressed an interest in the work of SC 32.

 

Internal Liaison Membership

IEC B3 JWG 15            Design Automation

ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC  2      Coded character sets

ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC  6      Telecommunications and information exchange between systems

ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC  7      Systems Engineering -ODP & Modelling Languages

ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC  7/WG 7            Software engineering/Life cycle management

ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 22     Programming languages

ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 22/WG 20          Programming languages/Internationalization

ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 24     Computer Graphics and Image Processing

ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27     IT Security Techniques

ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 34     Document Description and Processing Languages

ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 35     User Interfaces

ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 36     Information Technology for Learning, Education & Training

ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 37     Biometrics

ISO/TC  37                  Terminology (principles and coordination)

ISO/TC  37/SC 2           Terminology and other language resources - Terminography and Lexicography

ISO/TC  37/SC 3           Terminology/Computer Applications

ISO/TC  37/SC 4           Terminology and other language resources

ISO/TC  46                  Information and documentation

ISO/TC  46/SC  4          Information and documentation/Computer applications

ISO/TC  46/SC 11         Archives / Records Management

ISO/TC  46/WG 2          Information and documentation/Coding of country names and related entities

ISO/TC  68/SC 2           Banking, securities and other financial services/ Security management

ISO/TC 127/WG 2         Mobile construction machinery - Work-site data exchange

ISO/TC 154                  Documents and data elements in administration, commerce and industry

ISO/TC 184                  Industrial automation systems and integration

ISO/TC 184/SC 4          Industrial automation systems and integration/ Industrial data

ISO/TC 204                  Transport Information and Control Systems

ISO/TC 211                  Geographic information/Geomatics

ISO/TC 215                  Healthcare Informatics

 

External Liaison Membership Category -       A

INTELSAT                     International Telecommunications Satellite Organization

ITU                             International Telecommunication Union - Telecommunication Standardization Sector

UN/ECE                       UN/Economic Commission for Europe/CEFACT

 

External Liaison Membership Category -       B

CISAC                         International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers

SWIFT                         Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication

WMO                          World Metrological Organization

 

External Liaison Membership Category -       C

DCMI                           Dublin Core Metadata  Initiative

Eurostat                       Eurostat

IEEE LTSC                    Learning Technology Standards Committee

OECD                          Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

OGC                           Open GIS Consortium

OMG                           Object Management Group

W3C                           World Wide Web Consortium

 

 

2.0     PERIOD REVIEW

Excellent progress has been made in developing SQL, SQL MM, RDA, eBusiness, and Metadata Registry standards. We expect that progress to continue in the future. Excellent progress has been made in developing SQL. The remaining parts of the SQL:2003 standards have been completed. An aggressive schedule for the next complete revision of ISO/IEC 9075 has been set with a target end date of fall 2006.

 

2.1     MARKET REQUIREMENTS

Market requirements for SC 32 standards are driven by the rapid pace of hardware and software advancement as well as by the explosive growth of World Wide Web/Internet/Intranet/Extranet applications. These drive a stream of market requirements that are addressed by SC 32 standards for data management and interchange, including metadata management. The data management market continues to grow rapidly in line with the geometric increase in the volume of data stored and served.

SC 32 projects are responding to an increasing market demand for semantics management. This is needed for data in databases, XML messages, text in documents (which may be stored in databases), the semantic web, etc. While there are several ISO standards for terminology content and structure, there is little connection between those standards and their potential use for data management and interchange. SC 32 is exploring the market requirements for semantics management and potential extensions to new and existing standards in order to articulate and then fill the unmet need.

Users are driving the market demand for metadata registries that describe the structure and meaning data. Major organizations are implementing metadata registries according to SC 32 standards and in the process are creating demand for extensions and broader coverage. This work is especially driven by the public access requirements of users and by market forces requiring the capability to share metadata between organizations.

The market demand for SQL database products remains strong. The clear acceptance of the SQL:2003 standards by the database vendors is very encouraging. The development of new parts and new features within the 9075 family of standards continues to be driven by perceived market priorities; the effort applied and the scheduling of the various parts has been adjusted accordingly.

Market demand of EDI and electronic commerce products grows as firms struggle to move into the electronic marketplace. Standards for EDI functions are necessary to facilitate this demand.  The SC 32 work related to eBusiness and metadata registries is supporting JTC 1 involvement with the ISO IEC UN/ECE MoU Management Group, however SC 32 has not found volunteers to regularly participate in the MOU/MG meetings.

Each part of SQL/MM standards is based on explicit requirements from a domain market.  Especially, SQL/MM Part 2: Spatial specifying Spatial Data Management received much attention from TC 204, TC 211, and OGC (Open GIS Consortium) and is being developed under close coordination with TC 211 and OGC. Thus, we believe that our standards meet real market requirements.

 

2.2     ACHIEVEMENTS

The following projects have completed or are in Stage 5 – Publication

1.32.10.02.00.00                                 ISO/IEC 5218:2004

Information technology -  Codes for the representation of human sexes

1.32.15.02.01.00                                 ISO/IEC 11179-1:2004

Information Technology --  Metadata Registries (MDR) - Part 1:  Framework

1.32.15.02.04.00                                 ISO/IEC 11179-4:2004

Information Technology -- Metadata Registries (MDR) - Part 4: Formulation of data definitions

1.32.30.02.00.00                                 ISO/IEC 14662:2004

Information technology - Open-Edi Reference Model 2nd Edition

1.32.16.01.03.00                                 ISO/IEC TR 20943-3:2004

Information technology - Achieving Metadata Registry Content Consistency - Part 3: Value Domains

 

The following projects are completing Stage 4 – Approval Stage by being submitted to ITTF for final vote.

1.32.26.01.00.00                                 ISO/IEC DIS 19502

Information technology - Meta Object Facility (MOF) Specification

1.32.27.01.00.00                                 ISO/IEC DIS 19503

Information technology - XML Metadata Interchange (XMI)

1.32.15.02.06.00                                 ISO/IEC FCD 11179-6

Information Technology -- Metadata Registries (MDR) - Part 6:  Registration

 

The following project completed Stage 3 – Committee Stage with FCD ballot

1.32.03.05.99.00                                 ISO/IEC 9075:2003/Cor 1

Information technology- Database languages - SQL - Technical Corrigendum for SQL:2003

 

The following project progressing Stage 3 – Committee Stage with FCD ballot

1.32.15.02.02.00                                 ISO/IEC FCD 11179-2

Information technology -- Metadata Registries (MDR) - Part 2:  Classification for administered items

1.32.15.02.05.00                                 ISO/IEC FCD 11179-5

Information Technology --Metadata Registries (MDR) - Part 5: Naming and identification principles

 

The following project is progressing in Stage 3 – Committee Stage

1.32.03.06.14.00                                 ISO/IEC CD 9075-14

Information technology --Database Language SQL - Part 14: SQL/XML

1.32.04.03.03.00                                 ISO/IEC CD 13249-3

Information technology - SQL Multimedia and Application Packages - Part 3:  Spatial 3rd ed.

1.32.04.02.06.00                                 ISO/IEC CD 13249-6

Information technology - Database languages - SQL Multimedia and Application Packages - Part 6: Data Mining 2nd ed

1.32.31.01.02.00                                 ISO/IEC CD 15944-2

Information technology - Business Agreement Semantic Descriptive Techniques Part 2: Registration of Scenarios and their Components

1.32.31.01.03.00                                 ISO/IEC CD 15944-3

Information technology - Business Agreement Semantic Descriptive Techniques Part 3: Open-edi Description Techniques

1.32.31.01.04.00                                 ISO/IEC CD 15944-4

Information technology - Business Agreement Semantic Descriptive Techniques Part 4: Business Transaction Scenarios - Accounting and Economic Ontology

1.32.31.01.05.00                                 ISO/IEC CD 15944-5

Information technology - Business Agreement Semantic Descriptive Techniques Part 5:  Identification and Mapping of Various Categories of Jurisdictional Domains

1.32.22.01.01.00                                 ISO/IEC CD 19763-01

Information technology - Framework for Metamodel interoperability Part 1:  Reference model

1.32.22.01.02.00                                 ISO/IEC CD 19763-02

Information technology - Framework for Metamodel interoperability Part 2:  Core (MOF/XMI extensions)

1.32.17.01.01.00                                 ISO/IEC CD 20944-01

Information technology -  Metadata Interoperability & Bindings (MDIB) Part 1:Framework

1.32.17.01.02.00                                 ISO/IEC CD 20944-02

Information technology - Metadata  Interoperability & Bindings (MDIB) Part 2: Common vocabulary

1.32.17.01.03.00                                 ISO/IEC CD 20944-03

Information technology - Metadata  Interoperability & Bindings (MDIB) Part 3: Common Provisions for Conformance

1.32.17.01.20.00                                 ISO/IEC CD 20944-20

Information technology - Metadata  Interoperability & Bindings (MDIB) Part 20: Common Provisions for Coding bindings

1.32.17.01.40.00                                 ISO/IEC CD 20944-40

Information technology - Metadata  Interoperability & Bindings (MDIB) Part 40: Common Provisions for API binding

1.32.17.01.41.00                                 ISO/IEC CD 20944-41

Information technology - Metadata  Interoperability & Bindings (MDIB) Part 41: C API binding

1.32.17.01.44.00                                 ISO/IEC CD 20944-44

Information technology - Metadata  Interoperability & Bindings (MDIB) Part 44:ECMA script API Binding

 

2.3     RESOURCES

Adequate resources are currently available for all projects.  SC 32 actively seeks and recruits new participants.  A new WG 3 Convener will be needed after April 2005.

 

2.4     ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES

None

 

2.5     PARTICIPATION METRICS

Indicate the active participation of National Bodies in both meetings and balloting.  In particular, note if the 50% voting participation requirement is being met.

JTC 1/SC 32 Performance (as of 2005-10-01)

SC 32 METRIC

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

200510

Attendance at Meetings 1, 7

N/A

476

57

73

62

53

47

47

61

New Standards Published 2

2

4

8

4

5

1

5

5

1

Total Standards Published 3

N/A

23

31

28

34

41

43

37

41

Active Projects 4

N/A

40

42

38

44

77

64

67

66

New Projects 5

N/A

0

4

4

0

138

3

0

2

1Average Meeting Attendance at Plenaries and Working Groups
(where a plenary include a meeting of all working groups – if working groups do not meet during plenary meetings, a cumulative mean attendance to working group meeting should be used) (Att. Plena.)

2New Standards published (NSP)

3Total standards published (and currently valid) (TSP)

4Active projects (AP)

5New projects introduced (NP)

6This does not include the first Planning meeting of JTC 1/SC 32 in February 1998

7At the National Body level the Working Groups are obtaining considerable participation with electronic participation

8Project splits waiting justification then JTC 1 approval

9Plus 250 attendees at the Open Forum on Metadata Registries, held concurrent with the SC 32 meetings, The attendance number does not include several Open Forum attendees who are also SC 32 participants at the National Body level, but who were unable to remain a second week for the SC 32 meetings.

10 Since April 2005

 

3.0     FOCUS NEXT WORK PERIOD

SC 32 has refined its program of work to ensure that it is focusing on those standards that will meet market requirements.  SC 32 plans to continue to focus on developing standards for SQL, SQL/MM, eBusiness and data semantics.  SQL work is expected to be particularly active.  The metadata registry market is very active, driving rapid development of all parts of ISO/IEC 11179. 

Database Languages (WG 3) work is active with the focus on a completely revised set of ISO/IEC 9075 parts as well as two new parts addressing more Java support and XML support.  WG 3 has assumed some of the projects from the former WG 5.

The eBusiness Working Group ( (WG 1) is concentrating on the second part of ISO/IEC 15944: Information technology - Business Agreement Semantic Descriptive Techniques Part 2: Registration of Scenarios and their Components, and the fourth part of ISO/IEC 15944: Information technology - Business Agreement Semantic Descriptive Techniques Part 4: Business Transactions and Scenarios – Accounting and Economic Ontologyand ISO/IEC 18038 Identification, mapping and IT-enablement of existing standards for widely used encodable value domains. A key characteristic of commerce world-wide is that it makes extensive use of enumerated lists, code sets, etc. representing possible choices of common aspects in business transactions. The problem is that most of these code sets in use world-wide are paper-based and, even if available in electronic form, lack a computer-processable version. The objective of this standardization work is (1) the development of a tool to facilitate the creation of IT-enabled versions of existing sets of “codes representing X”, and (2) to do so, in a manner which will support localization and multilingual requirements of the marketplace. 

The Metadata Working Group (WG 2) is progressing with revisions to the ISO/IEC 11179 family of metadata registry standards. A major effort is underway to produce a revised metamodel for metadata registries. This will form the foundation for the next edition (E3) of this family of standards. It is intended to greatly enhance the semantic management capabilities. The ISO/IEC 20944 project addresses the exchange of metadata among ISO/IEC 11179-based registries that depends not only on standard-conforming software, but also on contents that are compatible across registries. WG 2 is working to demonstrate use of XML for accessing and interchanging information in 11179 conformant data registries. Work is also underway to foster interoperation between ISO/IEC 11179 metadata registries, XML registries, Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI) registries, database catalogues, ontology registries and CASE tool repositories. WG 2 is developing a new family of standards, ISO/IEC 19763 - Framework for Metamodel Interoperability. This standard will help businesses to translate between local ontologies to facilitate business interactions. This is an area of emerging technology.

The WG 2 work is positioned to meet the deeper semantic management aspects of data management and interchange. This includes provision of semantics for semantic computing, the semantic web and management of XML schemas, tags, classification schemes, and associated metadata.

WG 2 sponsors an annual Open Forum on Metadata Registries. The eighth was held in Berlin, Germany in April 2004 in partnership with ISO/TC 37. The ninth will be held in Kobe, Japan, March 20-22, 2006.

 

3.1     DELIVERABLES

See section 1.2 for those projects with upcoming target dates.

 

3.2     STRATEGIES

SC 32 is focused on progressing its program of work as quickly and efficiently as possible. 

The committee is focused on identifying and meeting meeting market requirements, and emphasizes new projects that have well-defined, concrete objectives that are market driven.

SC 32 empowers its WGs by delegating everything that can be delegated to a WG, per JTC 1 directives, along with the relevant authority and responsibility. The SC does not impose any additional management overhead. SC 32 Plenary meetings accomplish those tasks required by the JTC 1 directives in as brief a time as possible. Only an opening and closing plenary are held with less than a half-day duration, each. Inter-WG discussions are invited during a tutorial meeting and anytime outside of Plenary. All contentious issues are identified in advance and groups appointed to resolve the issue and prepare a recommendation before the closing Plenary. This strategy is intended to make the SC as productive as the members can be.

SC32 maintains extensive contact with software developers and users to keep in close alignment with market forces.

The Working Groups continue to utilize electronic editing meeting in order to progress the work as fast as possible.

 

3.2.1   RISKS

Each of the Working Groups within SC 32 has its own priorities and strategies for achieving its objectives.  There is increasing progress in identifying and establishing critical inter-group understanding and liaisons.   Some progress is being made on developing new standards that cut across the WG  organizational lines. Considerable effort is being given to avoid isolated work within the WGs. At current SC 32 meetings, each WG gives a tutorial on its work to the full committee.

There is always the risk that new project could be initiated that does not have clear objectives and concrete specifications.  If this occurs, SC 32 would dilute its focus and might create incentive to produce important standards outside of SC 32 and JTC 1.

Overlapping scope of projects is an area that needs to be continually monitored and controlled. Changes in market requirements may cause some perturbation in the work schedules. However, if we lose technology leadership, we may lose control. Therefore, rapid development of new standards and the next edition of existing standards is crucial factor of future success.

If SC 32 does not pursue its work aggressively, risks exist that essential capabilities will not be available in the marketplace to support important functions, or that the marketplace will produce multiple incompatible solutions in areas that common approaches and interoperability are essential to users.

The delegation of authority and responsibility to the WGs stands in contrast to the working of some of the SC/WG relationships that came into SC 32. This management style makes some participants uncomfortable, since it limits discussion time in Plenary meetings. There is a risk of missing some viewpoints that might be expressed in longer Plenary meetings.

SC 32 continues to have funding support problems for the Secretariat.  Funds have been provided in limited increments without any long-term provision for continuation.

Other standards bodies are very active in areas related to SC 32 standards. SC 32 must be nimble to maintain its relevance and leadership.

3.2.2   OPPORTUNITIES

The Internet, electronic commerce, semantic computing, the semantic web, object technologies, and XML represent major areas of opportunity where market forces are creating demand for SC 32 standards.  We will continue to work with the others involved to identify the specific standardization needs and to respond with current and newly proposed standards.

XML represents a major area of opportunity where market forces are creating demand for standards. SC 32 is continually monitoring the work in this area and will react as soon as it sees and appropriate opportunity.

3.3     WORK PROGRAMME PRIORITIES

Each WG establishes work programme priorities in their project plan, which is approved in the SC 32 Plenary. These can be seen in the material, above. For example, high priority is given to the standardization of an integrated/interoperable information processing environment. 

The SC has established a priority of educating each working group about the work and ideas of the other work groups.  The prior SC 32 meetings have shown that there is considerable interest in the synergy that can be developed within the committee.  The next SC 32 meeting will again include tutorials from each work group.