Minutes – Z39.86 Advisory Committee Conference Call

Date: December 8, 2004
Time: 9:00 – 10:10 EST
Venue: telcon
Scribe: Jennifer Sutton
Last Edited: 2004-12-14
Status: Version 2

Attendees

Advisory Committee:

George Kerscher, Advisory Committee Chair – DAISY Consortium and Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic
Thomas Kjellberg Christensen – Danish Library for the Blind
Marisa DeMeglio – DAISY for All Project
Tom McLaughlin – National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped
Michael Moodie – National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped
James Pritchett – Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic
Lloyd Rasmussen – National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped
Jennifer Sutton, Scribe – DAISY Consortium

Participating Experts:

Neil Bernstein – National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped
Werner Krebs – Design Science
Dominic Labbé – VisuAide
Chris Wilder-Smith – CAST
Neil Soiffer – Design Science

Apologies:

Ole Holst Andersen – Danish Library for the Blind
Markus Gylling – DAISY Consortium and Swedish Library of Talking Books and Braille
Dave Pawson – Royal National Institute of the Blind

Agenda

The agenda was distributed to the Advisory Committee's list on Monday, December 6. there were no amendments in advance of the call.

1. Welcome

Gk noted that "we have nine voting members, six invited experts, and Jennifer as scribe."

The group is pleased to have the invited experts join this call. Their contributions to maintaining and enhancing the standard will be most welcome.

GK mentioned that Markku Hakkinen will no longer be serving on the Advisory Committee. His contributions over the years are recognized and appreciated.

2. Agenda Additions

There were no additions to the proposed agenda.

3. Confirmation of Date and Time for Next Call

Gk proposed that the next call be held on January 5, 2005. There was some discussion of the time. For this next call, the time will stay the same (as reflected below); however, TKC and OHA will discuss the possibility of being available one hour later.

ACTION: TKC and OHA will discuss the possibility of being available to start calls one hour later, at least sometimes, so that attendees on Pacific time will not be required to be available so early.

4. News from NISO Regarding Voting on the Proposed 2004 Standard

MM indicated that approximately half of the affirmative votes required have been received. At this point, it is unlikely that the standard will be approved by the end of 2004, so any references to the year 2004 will need to be modified.

5. Review of Revised Web Site

GK requested the group to review www.loc.gov/nls/z3986 in advance of the call. The established structure for the posting of minutes is adequate.

ACTION: GK will send the message to the Technical Developments listserv to provide the links to the minutes as indicated in the "participation email."

GK raised the issue that there is no mention of the proposed 2004 standard, the specification itself, or the separated packet of DTDs.

MM indicated that the basic framework is in place on the NLS site, but that currently it is "commented out," and it will be activated once the standard is approved by NISO.

ACTION: LR will draft a paragraph to alert site visitors that additional information will be coming soon. LR will provide this text to the NLS Web Master for posting.

6. Terminology Problem: Module, Modularization, Extensions

GK sought clarification of the terms the group should be using, especially as he is developing the DAISY Consortium's Strategic Plan. JP took the lead in clarifying some of the approaches to extending the standard such as using the XHTML module concept. As the group has discussed on several occasions, the approaches chosen quickly begin to require decisions about whether to use DTDs, XML schema, etc.

Currently, the standard refers to modular extensions from within a DTBook document.

MM mentioned that the term "module" might sometimes be appropriate when the necessary accompanying documentation for extending is included, such as training materials and sample content.

As an example, JP was asked to send his work on Math to the list, and he has completed this task. Feedback from Design Science on the work so far will be welcome.

JP mentioned a recent article that clarifies some of these issues. For reference, see: XML.com Extensibility, XML Vocabularies, and XML Schema.

Issues identified during the discussion include:

Extensions need to be forward and backward compatible.
Consider how extensibility will affect SMIL.
Do the extensibility externalblock or inlineblock declarations need to list all tags in the extension's DTD, or only high-level ones?
Can the extension(s) basically be made transparent?
Using existing DTDs is critical.
What is the best approach to assure that end-users will have a successful reading experience?

Generally, the approach will be thought of as extensibility (as GK will reflect that in the strategic planning document), but the need for supporting documentation should not be overlooked.

ACTION: GK, JP and WK will begin work on a short process document (perhaps two pages) that will outline requirements for proposing extensions. The idea will be that those who wish to propose an extension will present the Committee with a developed approach for its consideration. Balancing oversight with available human resources will be important. This Action Item will focus on the establishment of the process. No deadline was set for the completion of this task.

7. Major Areas of Work List

GK mentioned the following possible work items in his proposed agenda:

ZedVal
Issues list
DRM
Structure Guidelines
Sample Materials: World Cultures and Geography
Conforming content
Definition of an extension/module (see Agenda Item 6 above)
Mathematics
Video
What else?

The group identified ZedVal, a definition of extensions, the development of a work plan, and DRM as the most critical issues. DRM work is well underway. GK is primarily responsible for developing the work plan. He envisions that this will consist of pulling together smaller work plans such as the one that the DRM group has in place.

8. ZedVal Update

The ZedVal team currently consists of MG, JP, MdM, LR, TM, and MM. JP provided an overview of the status of the software for the new invited experts. To locate ZedVal, visit www.zedval.sourceforge.net/.

9. Issues Documents that Jennifer Extracted

The group was asked to review this file set distributed to the list in advance of the call. GK did not complete the development of the template. This item is deferred.

10. Face-to-Face Meeting Dates?

There was discussion of a possible face-to-face meeting in conjunction with various conferences that people will already be attending from January to April of 2005. The group decided to postpone plans for a face-to-face meeting, for now, until there is an identified need to have one. Possible topics for such a meeting may include:

Implementation of the soon-to-be-approved standard
Implementation of extensibility
Coordinating the design of a production tool with a Zed Advisory Committee meeting (related to the production tool requirements document developed by the DAISY Consortium)

Instead of a face-to-face meeting, the group will consider having more frequent conference calls beginning in February. Such calls may take place every two weeks. The meeting schedule will be discussed further on January's call.

11. Next Conference Call

The next conference call of the Advisory Committee will be held on Wednesday, January 5, 2004 from 9:00 – 10:00 EST. This means 6:00 Pacific, 7:00 Mountain, 9:00 Eastern, 14:00 UK, and 15:00 Copenhagen and Stockholm.