XML Community of Practice

Meeting Notes

December 14, 2005

This meeting was hosted by LMI in McLean.

Some of those who were in attendance at the XML 2005 conference shared a few observations on the highlights. Owen Ambur indicated that for him one of the highlights was Microsoft’s well-attended session on its open XML file formats, which they have subsequently pledged to turn over to Ecma for establishment as international open standards. Owen also noted that an XBRL forum has been scheduled for January and he invited Allyson Ugarte to say a few words about it. He also noted that Allyson had recently participated in a highly encouraging meeting with Brand Niemann regarding prospects for an XBRL-related pilot of the Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA) Data Reference Model (DRM) involving the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).

Brand indicated that five vendors have already implemented the DRM specification. He also noted that Lockheed Martin and the metadata group are considering the relationship of IP addresses to the Universal Data Element Framework (UDEF) toward the objective of making data machine processable, as opposed to merely naming it in accordance with XML naming and design rules. He suggested such usage may be a prime factor in the business case for IPv6. Brand said indications were that the DRM would not be released by the projected December 17 deadline so as to allow additional time for review of the abstract model. Finally, he indicated Dick Burk wants to simplify requirements for agency reports to OMB by focusing them around enterprise architecture (EA) maturity assessments.

Turning to the ET.gov process, Owen noted that Adam Schwartz of GPO has volunteered to co-chair the Strategy Markup Language (StratML) community of practice and will be seeking another co-chair or two as well as participants in the CoP. Owen also mentioned that the CIO Council’s process for updating and maintaining the FEA models has been released and its relationship to the ET process has been documented in Stage 4, at http://et.gov/stage4.htm

Paul Macias and Greg Wilson updated the group on the status of the XML Naming and Design Rules and Guidelines (NDRG). Paul indicated a point-by-point response has been drafted addressing the concerns raised by the Intelligence Community. Ken Sall suggested the assumptions section of the draft NDRG should be supplemented with such points as the need for an XML registry to facilitate discovery and reuse of XML components. Paul indicated the concept of communities of practice (CoPs) will be added to the draft, which previously has only referenced agency-specific and governmentwide components. He also indicated that explicit justifications will be provided for each rule, where the word MUST is used, as opposed to those points which are merely deemed to be good guidance, i.e., SHOULD statements.

Those who registered their presence were:

Owen Ambur, Co-Chair, xmlCoP

Soma Chary, NTIA

Kathy Flitter, Navy

Jessica Glace, LMI

John Jirsch, NITA

Kim Lambert, LMI

Paul Macias, LMI

KC Morris, NIST

Lex Poot, DTS

Sol Safran, IRS

Sylvia Webb, GEFEG US

Greg Wilson, LMI

Those who identified themselves on the teleconference line included:

Michael Grimley, Navy

Tom Merkle, NIJ

Mike Norton

Chris Traver, DOJ/OJP

Allyson Ugarte, XBRL-US

Please convey any additions or corrections to Owen_Ambur@ios.doi.gov