Re: [dsaw-program] Draft ITU invitation letter for your review

[Eliot Christian <echristian@usgs.gov>]

At 12:45 PM 6/21/2006, simao.campos@itu.int wrote:
>Dear all,
>
>please find attached for your review the draft of the ITU TSB Circular Letter (our jargon for invitation letter) with the announcement and invitation for our joint WS. A lot of what is in it is our boiler plate, but more specific paras are 5, 6, and Annex 1.
>
>I passed the text for objectives and draft programme through our "quality control" person and he suggested some amendments which I consider an improvement to to the text that I had extracted from our Concept document. This affects in the Circular Letter:
>- Paras 5, 6

I cannot agree to the amendments of paragraph 5. One set of amendments is in the second point of paragraph 5:

 - To demonstrate the availability and effectiveness of interoperable technologies based on the content standard applicable to all alerts and notifications for disasters and emergency situations 

The suggested amendments would result in this:

 - To demonstrate the availability and effectiveness of interoperable technologies based on content standards for alerts and notifications in disasters and emergency situations 

These suggested amendments to the second point of paragraph 5 would change the meaning substantially. Instead of a focus on the particular content standard (CAP), the amendment text would allude vaguely to "content standards". Also, there would be a significant change in meaning by removing the phrase "applicable to all". The amended text would imply that the focus is on alerts and notification as they are currently used in disasters and emergency situations. That is quite different from the actual point of the demonstration, which is to show how alerts and notifications could be stanadardized by using the CAP content standard.

Another set of amendments is suggested in the fourth point of paragraph 5:

  - To prepare an action list for filling gaps and promoting public warning standardization, and identify key players that could collaborate on such work. 

The suggested amendments would result in this:

  - To prepare an action list for filling gaps and promoting public warning standardization, and identifying key players that could collaborate on in such work. 

Again, the suggested amendments would change the meaning substantially. As originally agreed, the point speaks of a pair of objectives: "prepare an action list" and "identify key players". In the suggested amendment, the task of identifying key players would not be done at the Workshop, but would instead become merely another item in the action list. I do think it is important to actually make an initial list at the Workshop of key players, taking advantage of the expertise assembled.

I also cannot agree to the amendments in paragraph 6 (other than the addition of an e-mail address):

  The workshop will be accompanied by demonstrations of standards-based implementations of alerting protocols providing all-media, all-hazards public warning in various societies worldwide, in particular using the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) OASIS Standard. Organizations interested in demonstrating running implementations are kindly invited to contact the OASIS Secretariat (Dee Schur, Tel: 978 667 5115 x211, Fax:  978 667 5114, <mailto:dee.schur@oasis-open.org>dee.schur@oasis-open.org). 

The first of the suggested amendments would change "standards-based" to "content-standards-based". Again, this introduces confusion by implying that we are dealing with more than one content standard. 

It is also suggested to replace the phrase "interested in demonstrating running implementations" with the phrase "interested in taking part". This chage is contrary to the agreement we reached in our last conference call: that all demonstrators have at least a minimal demonstration of an actual CAP implementation.

>- Text of session objectives in Annex 1

I have no objections to the changes in Annex 1 or elsewhere.

Eliot