Subject: SC22 N2371 - Resolutions of Joint Workshop on Models

From: "william c. rinehuls" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 31 Dec 1996 12:20:54 -0500 (EST)

_____________________beginning of title page ________________________
ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22
Programming languages, their environments and system software interfaces
Secretariat:  U.S.A.  (ANSI)

ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22
N2371

January 1997

TITLE:                 Resolutions of the Joint Workshop on Standards
                       for the Use of Models that Define the Data and
                       Processes of Information Systems, Bellevue,
                       Washington, USA, September 1996

SOURCE:                Secretariat, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22

WORK ITEM:             N/A

STATUS:                At the ISO/IEC JTC 1 Plenary in December, JTC 1
                       requested the SCs to take note of this report,
                       especially Recommendation 2.1.

CROSS REFERENCE:       SC22 N2365

DOCUMENT TYPE:         N/A

ACTION:                To SC22 Member Bodies, WG Conveners and HODs
                       for information.

Address reply to:
ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22 Secretariat
William C. Rinehuls
8457 Rushing Creek Court
Springfield, VA 22153  USA
Tel:  +1 (703) 912-9680
Fax:  +1 (703) 912-2973
email:  [email-masked]

__________________end of title page; beginning of text ____________
ISO/IEC JTC 1                                                         
Information Technology                                                

ISO/IEC  JTC 1 N 4345                   

DATE:  1996.11.25     

REPLACES                                     

DOC TYPE:
Resolutions                                                           

TITLE:
Resolutions of the Joint Workshop on Standards for the Use of Models  
that Define the Data and Processes of Information Systems, Bellevue,  
Washington, USA, September 1996                                       

SOURCE:
Workshop Convener                                                     

PROJECT:                   

STATUS:
This document is circulated to JTC 1 National Bodies for review and   
consideration at the December 1996 JTC 1 Plenary meeting in Paris.    

ACTION ID:  ACT 

DUE DATE:  1996.12.13

DISTRIBUTION:  P and L Members                                             

MEDIUM:  E

DISKETTE NO.:            

NO. OF PAGES:  8         

Secretariat, ISO/IEC JTC 1, American National Standards Institute, 11 
West 42nd Street, New York, NY  10036; Telephone:  1 212 642 4932;    
Facsimile:  1 212 398 0023; Email:  [email-masked]                 

				ISO/IEC JTC 1 N 4345

The URL of this page is http://www.nist.gov/workshop/jtc1-96/resolu~1.htm 

1. Resolutions of the Joint Workshop: Managing Modeling Activities

The Joint Workshop on Standards for the Use of Models that Define the Data
and Processes of Information Systems,hereinafter referred to as the "Joint
Workshop", met in Bellevue, Washington, USA, in September 1996. The
followingresolutions to JTC1 are the product of that workshop.

Other components of the Report of the Joint Workshop

   1.Participation in the Joint Workshop
   2.Call for Participation in the Joint Workshop
   3.Document Log of the Joint Workshop

Contents of Resolutions Document

   1.Summary of Resolutions
   2.Situation 
   3.Resolutions 
        1.Sharing and Reuse of Standards for Modeling 
        2.Managing Duplication of Standards for Modeling 
        3.Registration of Metadata 

Summary of Resolutions

   1.Sharing and Reuse of Standards for Modeling
        1.JWS R1.1. The Joint Workshop requests that JTC1 recommend that
ISO and IEC establish a joint technical supervisory group to identify
potential overlap of standards for development and use of models and to
recommend action to reduce the overlap and/or coordinate the standards.
        2.JWS R1.2. The Joint Workshop requests that JTC1 recommend that
ISO and IEC establish electronic means to support mutual access to
model-related work in process across working groups. These means should
include topic-based access.
        3.JWS R1.3. The Joint Workshop requests that JTC1 recommend that
ISO and IEC establish market-oriented publishing policies and methods.
   2.Managing Duplication of Standards for Modeling
        1.JWS R2.1. The Joint Workshop requests that JTC1 recommend to all
its subcommittees and to appropriate technical committees of ISO and IEC,
to UN/EDIFACT and to appropriate liaison organizations, that they
recognize the proliferation of modeling languages, and the duplication of
efforts in producing and using modeling standards. 
        2.JWS R2.2. The Joint Workshop requests that JTC1 recommend to all
its subcommittees and to appropriate technical committees of ISO and IEC,
to UN/EDIFACT that they jointly develop a reference document on modeling
and the use of models in the design, construction and management of
information systems.
        3.JWS R2.3. The Joint Workshop requests that JTC1 recommend that
JTC1/SC7 conduct a study period to establish the technical basis for a
program of work leading to the standardization for the mapping of modeling
languages.. 
   3.Registration of Metadata
        1.JWS R3.1. The Joint Workshop requests that JTC1 organize a
Workshop on Metadata Registration.
        2.JWS R3.2. The Joint Workshop requests that JTC1 change their
procedures to include registration of the metadata in standard models as
part of the standard publication procedure. Situation

Return to beginning of Resolutions document. 

Industry in the information age requires the communication of large
volumes of data among enterprises. These enterprise include not only the
companies that manufacture and market the products of industry, but also
the governmental agencies that coordinate and regulate that industry, and
the academic organizations that supply industry with a stream of new
research and talent.

Computing technology has become the primary tool for the management and
distribution of this data.. In the last decades of the Twentieth Century,
communication and computing technology have both seen explosive growth
through the emergence of a mutual positive feedback loop in which
competitive improvements in technology have enabled improved
communication, while the competitive value of better communication has
generated increased demand for computing technology. This rapid evolution
produces continuous change both in the kinds of data to be exchanged and
in the technology that manages that data.

The challenge to an enterprise is how to enable its computer to send data
to the computers of other enterprises, and have those other computers and
enterprises do what we expect them to do, despite these constant changes.

We do this everyday with certain kinds of information. For example, we are
able to exchange quantitative data because the concepts and labels for
each units of measure has been standardized internationally. The
scientific community learned in the 1800's that they could not communicate
in units of measure unless they agreed to a universal meaning for each and
used a consistent label. Further, they realized an international system
for the calibration of measurement processes was required to transfer the
meaning of a unit to a measurement instance. Otherwise, organizations
could not trust that the unit of measure concept had been correctly
applied and the reported value be used to make decisions. Being able to
share units of measure has been very powerful for industry.

The same standardization and calibration requirements exist for the
communication of business concepts such as those conveyed by these words:
product, delivering, shipping, transporting, etc. The concepts must be
agreed internationally, a unique label assigned, and a system of relating
labels that serves the equivalent purpose of calibration must be put into
place. 

All of these standards including units of measure need a system by which a
person can find the business concept they are looking for so that they can
enter the correct label into the computer. As these standards are used the
labels for them may come into common use. This may take several decades
for humans. For computers it is an immediate necessity. 

The everyday concepts of business need to be standardized and labeled like
the units of measure, so that computers at the bidding of organizations
can carry out work among enterprises without human involvement, except at
installation. 

Data and process modeling techniques provide a means for managing standard
definitions of business concepts, whether those "standards" are applied
only within an enterprise or across an industry. These techniques enable
the specification of

   1.business objects and their relationships and representations,
   2.business processes and the effects of their operation on business
objects,
   3.data management systems that control the retention and distribution
of information about business objects,
   4.computing applications that perform transformations on business
objects and the data about them. 

A class of technology, e.g., CASE (computer-aided software engineering)
tools, repositories, modeling languages, etc., has evolved to support the
development of these models. However, the use of these tools to establish
effective standards across industry, or even across a single large
enterprise, has been limited by the lack of a clear consensus on standards
for the exchange of these models.

One of the problems limiting this exchange has been the profusion of
modelling languages and tools within the enterprise and hence the high
costs of support for relating them, due to the lack of mapping.

These high costs result from such things as: 

   1.distribution
   2.syntactic and semantic diversity
   3.interfacing
   4.need for reverse engineering
   5.redundancy within applications
   6.ensuring consistency/correcting inconsistencies
   7.maintenance throughout a life cycle. 

The alleviation of these problems will meet the overall objective of
enabling on-demand interoperability of models.  Interoperability here is
defined as the ability to relate (statically or dynamically) any model and
associated modelling language that there is a need to relate. This
involves integration among subject area models through interoperability of
separate model components developed using differing modelling languages
and possibly stored in and managed by differing data management
technologies and repositories/data dictionaries. These models may be
distributed across intranets and the Internet. This kind of
interoperability will enable a kind of "semantic plug and play" in which
users will be able to change their system according to needs without
excessive dependency on application knowledge and model configuration.

Several different standards for modeling facilities either exist or are in
the process of being approved as international standards, including the
following:

   1.EXPRESS is a data modeling language defined in Part 11 of ISO 10303,
Industrial automation systems and integration -
     Product data representation and exchange, popularly known as STEP
(STandard for the Exchange of Product model data).
   2.CDIF (CASE Data Interchange Format), is a standard of EIA (Electronic
Industries Association), now a under consideration by ISO/IEC
JTC1/SC7/WG11 in Drafts 15474 (Parts 1-3), 15475 (Parts 1-3), 15476 (Parts
1-6) and 15477 (Parts 1-2).
   3.CSMF (Conceptual Schema Modeling Facilities), a standard for modeling
facilities now under development by ISO/IEC JTC1/SC21/WG3.
   4.IRDS (Information Resource Dictionary System) is defined in ISO/IEC
10027:1990 and ISO/IEC 10728:1993 as a model repository, which includes a
modeling facility.
   5.PCTE (Portable Common Tool Environment) is defined in ISO/IEC 13719
as a model repository, which includes a modeling language. 
   6.ASN.1 (Abstract Syntax Notation 1) is defined in ISO/IEC 8824 as a
standard for modeling the abstract syntax of data. 

In addition activities are under way both by national standards agencies
and by industry consortia to develop standards for modeling languages.
Some of these are expected to be offered in the near future for
international standardization. These include the following: 

   1.The IDEF (Integrated Definition Language) family of modeling
languages is already a US Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS),
and is reviewed for US standardization by the Institute of Electrical &
Electronic Engineers (IEEE) Computer Society, which is itself certified by
the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).
   2.KIF (Knowledge Interchange Format) and Conceptual Graphs (CGs) are
being standardized by ANSI ASC X3T2.
   3.SSADM has been standardized by the British Standards Institution
(BSI).
   4.OMT (Object Modeling Technique) is being developed to support the
object-oriented approach to interoperability being developed by the Object
Management Group (OMG).

The relationship among these modeling techniques and the associated
development activities is currently the source of much confusion. The
workshop identified specific problems, including but not limited to the
following:

   1.ISO TC184/SC4 has developed its own 'integrated' modeling technique
(EXPRESS) and tools are being implemented to support it. Other modelling
tools, especially those for software engineering, can share data through
the export/import format of the CDIF standard. Meanwhile, many vendors are
moving ahead to implement a variety of different (and generally not
compatible) object-oriented modeling tools.
   2.Groups working on IRDS, PCTE, PLIB (ISO TC184/SC4 Parts Library) are
independently developing standards for data dictionaries/repositories to
manage definitions of different aspects of models.
   3.Groups working on CSMF, CDIF, ODP (Open Distributed Processing), IRDS
and PCTE are all developing techniques for the integration of models. None
addresses the full scope of the problem. For example, CSMF addresses
semantic integration of conceptual models/conceptual schemas, CDIF
addresses syntactical interchange of models typically created and managed
by CASE tools, ODP addresses integration of object-based models of
different aspects of information systems, , while IRDS and PCTE address
means for storing, cross-referencing and managing models of any kind that
can be defined using the facilities of the repository. 
   4.ISO TC184/SC4 developed its own export/import format for product data
exchange, and its own application programming interface (the Standard Data
Access Interface or SDAI), with its own bindings to C, C++, and CORBA IDL,
independently of the remote database access and export/import facilities
being developed by JTC1/SC21/WG3.
   5.The OMG has recently issued RFPs (Requests for Proposals) for
specifications of facilities for the storage and manipulation of
meta-objects and for the exchange of information between object modelling
tools.
   6.There is no clear responsibility for assuring that tools that conform
to the standards for specific domains will interoperate with tools
developed for other domains. ISO TC184/SC4 is working to solve this
problem within its own broad family of STEP standards.

Although these different modeling languages meet different objectives,
there is consensus among the participants in the Joint Workshop that there
is significant overlap in the meaning of the constructs of these
languages;

The users of modeling technology need to be able to share, integrate and
act on models, independently of the language in which those models are
originally formulated;

There exists no common interpretation of all standard modeling languages
that allows models formulated in one language to be expressed in other
languages;

The task of comparing and interrelating standard modeling languages and
techniques is complicated by the often significant divergence in meaning
of salient terms used by the committees developing those languages;

The terminology of a given modeling language development activity must be
suited to the context in which that language is to be used, and therefore
it is not feasible to impose a single set of modeling terminology on all
modeling language development activities. 

Resolutions

Return to beginning of Resolutions document. 

The Joint Workshop reached consensus that the following resolutions will
promote the effective standardization, use, exchange, integration and
implementation of models and modeling technology.

1. Sharing and Reuse of Standards for Modeling

JWS R1.1. The Joint Workshop requests that JTC1 recommend that ISO and IEC
establish a joint technical supervisory group to identify potential
overlap of standards for development and use of models and to recommend
action reduce the overlap and/or coordinate the standards. 

JWS R1.2. The Joint Workshop requests that JTC1 recommend that ISO and IEC
establish electronic means to support mutual access to model-related work
in process across working groups. These means should include topic-based
access.

JWS R1.3. The Joint Workshop requests that JTC1 recommend that ISO and IEC
establish market-oriented publishing policies and methods.

These policies and methods should include the following: 

   1.Publication and dissemination of standards in electronic form, and
accessible over the World Wide Web
   2.Electronic registration of customer interests
   3.Free electronic access to frameworks, glossaries and abstracts
   4.Reduction of time from electronic manuscript to global electronic
access.

2. Managing Duplication of Standards for Modeling

Return to beginning of Resolutions document. 

JWS R2.1. The Joint Workshop requests that JTC1 recommend to all its
subcommittees and to appropriate technical committees of ISO and IEC, to
UN/EDIFACT and to appropriate liaison organizations, that they recognize
the proliferation of modeling languages, and the duplication of efforts in
producing and using modeling standards.

These affected bodies should review the modeling methods used in their
standards with the long term objective of integrating and harmonizing
their models towards the production of an open and common ISO repository
using standardized services.

JWS R2.2. The Joint Workshop requests that JTC1 recommend to all its
subcommittees and to appropriate technical committees of ISO and IEC, to
UN/EDIFACT that they jointly develop a reference document on modeling and
the use of models in the design, construction and management of
information systems. 

This reference document for modeling will relate the major technologies
required to enable semantic plug and play. In so doing it serves as a
context for positioning existing and future ISO standards development
projects related to modeling and understanding their relationships and
dependencies.

This reference document for modeling will address: 

   1.Subject area or application area models e.g., ISO TC184/SC4 STEP, ISO
TC184/SC5/WG1 Modeling and Architecture, ISO TC211 Geographic
Information/Geomatics. Other areas might include: healthcare, EDI (refer
to UN/EDIFACT and Open-edi) and others.
   2.Repositories/data dictionaries and CASE tools e.g.., ISO/IEC
JTC1/SC22/WG22 PCTE and ISO/IEC JTC1/SC21/WG3 IRDS, and related work in
OMG, ISO TC184/SC4/WG2, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC7/WG11 and UN/EDIFACT.
   3.Protocols and other mechanisms for invocation of standard model
manipulation services that enable access, transfer and integration of
models e.g., ISO/IEC JTC1/SC7/WG11 CDIF/SEDDI and ISO TC184/SC4/WG11 SDAI. 
   4.Standardized modeling languages with registered meta models e.g.,
EXPRESS, CDIF data modeling and data flow modeling, and related national
standards such as SSADM, IDEF1X, KIF, etc.
   5.Standardized common modeling constructs for expressing data,
processes and rules, e.g., ISO/IEC JTC1/SC21/WG3 CSMF for conceptual
modelling, and ISO/IEC JTC1/SC21/WG7 ODP for information systems.

The following specific requirements will be addressed by this reference
document:

   1.The general rules for mapping the syntax and semantics between
various modeling methodologies (Topic 3, Registration of Metadata,
proposes a near-term program to meet this requirement.); 
   2.the infrastructural services that support and enable the activation
or enactment of models;
   3.the creation of a formal modeling framework that interrelates the
modeling activities of the various standards organizations.

JWS R2.3. The Joint Workshop requests that JTC1 recommend that JTC1/SC7
conduct a study period to establish the technical basis for a program of
work leading to the standardization for the mapping of modeling languages.

The objective of this study is to provide a technical basis for achieving
relatively near-term results that conform to the Reference Document to be
developed according to JWS R2.2 above. This study shall be open to
participation by all subcommittees of JTC1 and all technical committees of
ISO, IEC, ITU and UN/EDIFACT. Because of the particular relevance of their
work, JTC1/SC7 should extend an explicit invitation to participate in the
study to JTC1/SC21, ISO TC184/SC4 and ISO TC184 SC5. The study shall
address the following:

   1..the mechanisms and processes for the semantic mapping between
modeling languages, where "semantic mapping" is understood to be the
establishment of a set of rules for the translation of models between
languages.
   2.the mechanisms for sharing and integrating of models that have been
formulated in languages that have been mapped through the mechanisms.
   3.the constraints and rules for the usage of modeling languages in
order for the models in the respective languages to be integrated through
the standard. 
   4.the use of IRDS and PCTE repository technology to record both models
and modelling approaches and to record equivalences between both model
components and the components of the definition of each modelling
approach. 
     (Examples: (1) relate an entity called "client" in an IDEF1X model to
an entity called "Customer" in an SSADM model. 
     (2) relate a modelling concept called 'Entity' in SSADM to the
concepts 'Entity' and 'Relationship' in IDEF1X.)

The study shall investigate the use of these mechanisms by applying them
to the mapping of EXPRESS and CDIF. This results of the study shall be
expressed in the form of a proposal to extend the CDIF data definition and
data modeling subject areas (ISO/IEC CD 15476 Parts 3 & 4) to incorporate
the additional concepts required by EXPRESS (ISO 10303-11). ISO TC184 and
ISO/IEC JTC1/SC7 shall subsequently and jointly decide whether to issue
the proposal for ballot, and the procedures to govern such a ballot.

3. Registration of Metadata

Return to beginning of Resolutions document. 

Considering that more and more standardization committees in various
application areas (e.g., IEC SC3B for electronic components, ISO TC29 for
manufacturing data, ISO TC184/SC4 for industrial data, UN/EDIFACT for
electronic messages) are defining computer readable data element
description to specify the meaning of the data involved in information
models or standards, often called "meta-data". 

The use of different structures for these sets of computer readable
descriptions would lead to duplication of work and incompatibility among
standards.

World wide web technologies for accessing text are well developed and in
use. However the world wide web lacks standards for access to structured
meta-data and data.

EDI message structures, their definition and specifications of meaning are
not easily available.

It is the view of the Joint Workshop that a registry for metadata in
standards should be established. The benefits of establishing such a
registry will include:

   1.It will ensure the consistency of metadata in standards; 
   2.it will ensure consistent management among repositories through
content modules;
   3.it will promote the development of standard metadata; 
   4.it will provide uniform access to metadata in standards; 
   5.it will facilitate access to structured data and meta-data via the
world wide web;
   6.it will facilitate the development of EDI messages and the use of
Internet technologies for the transmission of EDI messages. 

The use of compatible sets of structures for meta-data, and the collection
of all these meta- data within a common registry, will promote the use of
the same meta-data across both the standardization and business
activities. This will reduce duplication of work and increase the
compatibility among all the standards that address electronic data
interchange.

JWS R3.1. The Joint Workshop requests that JTC1 organize a Workshop on
Metadata Registration.

The purpose of this workshop is to address the development of this
registry of the salient attributes of data models and meta models in
relevant International standards.

The workshop should address the following topics: 

   1.Formulate a template for the submission of such metadata. The
template should be developed considering the content of
        1.IEC 1360,
        2.ISO 10303, especially Part 11 (EXPRESS Data Modeling Language),
Part 21 (Clear Text Encoding), and Part 22 (Standard Data Access
Interface)
        3.ISO 13584,
        4.ISO 14258,
        5.ISO/IEC 10728 IRDS Services Interface,
        6.ISO/IEC 11179,
        7.ISO/IEC 13719 Portable Common Tool Environment,
        8.ISO/IEC CD 13237 Naming and Thesaurus,
        9.ISO/IEC 13645 Guidelines for the Design of IRDS Content Modules,
       10.ANSI dpANS X3.285 Meta-model for management of shareable data,
       11.IEEE P1157 Standard for Health Care data Interchange MEDIX Joint
Working Group with a meta-model of shareable data; 
       12.EIA CDIF -- EIA/PN-3071 Data Definition and EIA-PN3072 Data
Modelling (ISO/IEC CD 15476 Parts 3 & 4).
   2.Develop an IRDS content module to specify the content of the
registry.
   3.Recommend the appointment of a registration authority and the source
of funding for such an authority. 
   4.Address the development of the registry technology and procedures. 
   5.Address the question of comparison and reconciliation of metadata
between standards to ensure consistency.
   6.Facilitation of access to structured data and meta-data via the world
wide web.
   7.Facilitation of access to the definition of the structure and meaning
of the elements in EDI messages via the world wide web.

The Joint Workshop further recommends that the responsibility for
organizing and leading this Workshop on Metadata Registration should be
assigned to JTC1/SC14. 

Participation in this workshop shall be open, but because of the
particular relevance of their work, JTC1 should extend an explicit
invitation to the following:

   1.IEC SC3d
   2.ISO TC46
   3.ISO TC154
   4.ISO TC184/SC4/WG2
   5.ISO TC184/SC5/WG1
   6.ISO TC211
   7.ISO/IEC JTC1/SC7/WG11. 
   8.ISO/IEC JTC1/SC14
   9.ISO/IEC JTC1/SC21/WG3 CSMF RG
  10.ISO/IEC JTC1/SC21/WG3 IRDS RG
  11.ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG22
  12.UN/EDIFACT

JWS R3.2. The Joint Workshop requests that JTC1 change their procedures to
include registration of the metadata in standard models as part of the
standard publication procedure.

Return to: JSW Home Page.  Edited by: JG Nell, NIST. Updated 14 November
1996. Send message to: [email-masked], or [email-masked] , or both
. 

_________________________end of document  SC22 N2371 ____________________