Re: [egov] XML Schema Design and Management Guide for Hong Kong SAR Government

[ytlee@cecid.hku.hk]

Dear David and eGov TC,

I previously sent the following response to the mailing list yet it happened to
me the message didn't reach the list. Let me re-send the message to you as follows:

-----
Thank you for your advice. I have briefly gone through some CAM materials, which
are definitely very valuable resources. 

I forgot to mention in my previous email that the XML Guide is a live document,
which will be reviewed and updated every six months. Therefore, when CAM becomes
mature and gains good software support, the XML Coordination Group of our
Government will definitely consider adopting it in an appropriate way. My team
will also further study the materials in depth in the coming months to see if
the XML Guide is ready to adopt any CAM features.

Yet as I mentioned in my email to ATG2 and UBL, we have some constraints in
developing this Guide at the current stage:

1. XML Schema is an approved standard in the current version  the HKSARG
Interoperability Framework. So the XML Guide must be a design methodology for
XML Schema.

2. The Guide must be as simple as possible to gain the initial acceptance by the
Government and the industry. XML technology is still quite new to our Government
and the IT industry in Hong Kong. Besides, the users of the Guide are not
standardization experts. They are mostly non-technical business users from
Government departments and system developers from IT contractors. Therefore, it
cannot be too complex for them to understand and use. That’s why we have paid so
much effort to simplify CCTS. Besides, it should be possible to streamline the
methodology by software in short term. We are developing software tools for
capturing the business requirements and translating them into XML Schema code
according to the methodology. Now, some Excel macros and program scripts have
been developed for simple XML Schema code generation.

3. We are aware of the current limitations of the Guide. We understand it is not
a total solution for information interoperability. However, if the Guide is only
expected for non-technical users to produce consistent schemas, it seems to
work. It is a strategy that we try to promote users’ the technical understanding
and development on XML through the Guide. After they have picked up the skills,
we believe they will expect more. It is easier for us to introduce more advanced
features, such as CAM for XML standardization. (You are perfectly right. At
least three address schemas have already been identified. Now, we simply develop
three separate schemas rather than using the context driven approach. The data
constraints that cannot be expressed by XML Schema will be specified by a
supplementary textual implementation guide.)

I quote the email I sent to ATG2 and UBL again to give you more background on
the formulation of the XML Guide.

Thanks again for your suggestions. My team will study and consider the CAM
technology carefully and make appropriate recommendations to our Government team.

Regards,

Thomas

==================================================================

Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2003 13:07:06 +0800
From: Thomas Lee <ytlee@cecid.hku.hk>
To: MCRAWFORD@lmi.org
CC: jon.bosak@sun.com, "H.Sugamata" <sugamata@ecom.or.jp>
Subject: HKSARG XML Guide

Dear Mark,

This is Thomas Lee from CECID Hong Kong. I had an ATG2 teleconference 
with you on April 7. I mentioned about an XML Schema Design and 
Management Guide we have been developing for the Hong Kong SAR 
Government (HKSARG). We've just finished a DRAFT version as attached and 
would like to seek comments from your group.

The attachment is packaged as follows:

Part 1 - Overview: an introduction to the objectives of this project and 
the deliverables.
Part 2 - XML Schema Design Guide: an XML Schema design methodology we 
have produced based on CCTS and UBL. It is intended to standardize the 
mechanisms for producing XML Schemas for HKSARG G2G and G2B joined-up 
services.
Part 3 - XML Schema Management Guide: the policy and organization we 
propose to manage and standardize the XML Schemas produced by different 
government departments.
Part 4 - Appendices: supplementary information for applying the Guide, 
including a case study for illustrating the use of the Design Guide.

I would like to add a point that the way of standardizing schemas for 
HKSARG is quite different from the ways commonly used by other standards 
bodies, such as ATG2 and UBL. We have adopted a rather decentralized and 
progressive approach for HKSARG, in which schema components to be 
standardized are contributed by projects. HKSARG does not intend to 
standardize schemas at the document level (at least initially) while it 
seeks to standardize only essential schema components, such as different 
types of addresses (e.g. postal address, physical address, etc.).  The 
reason is partly due to that this progressive approach is strategically 
more feasible than the big bang approach for standardization because of 
the decentralized IT management nature in HKSARG.

Therefore, we choose to provide a simple standard methodology for 
project teams to capture buisness requirements and translate them into 
consistent schema code. We have extensively simplified and systematized 
CCTS for project teams, who are not expected to be XML and 
standardization experts, to use. A very small central team will be 
formed to standardize only essential schema components of which the 
business requirements are contributed by project teams. Owing to the 
extensive customization, we seek to remove and modify some complex CCTS 
concepts and features. Therefore, some potential deviations from CCTS 
should be expected.

I believe your team could provide us with valuable suggestions on 
further enhancing our deliverables with your XML standardization 
experience and expertise. On the other hand, you may also see whether 
some guidelines in the Guide are relevant for adoption by your team. You 
may upload this package to your e-room for review by your members.

Dear Jon,

I would like to see if the UBL team is also interested in this XML 
Guide. BTW, we have adopted many ideas from the UBL methodology. :-) 
Please also circulate the package among your members. We would like to 
invite comments from your team too.

Regards,

Thomas

-- 
  Thomas Y.T. LEE
  Chief Technology Officer
  Center for E-Commerce Infrastructure Development (CECID)
  Department of Computer Science and Information Systems
  The University of Hong Kong
  E-mail: ytlee@cecid.hku.hk  URL: http://www.cecid.hku.hk
  Tel: +852 22415388  Fax: +852 25474611
  Room 301, Chow Yei Ching Building
  Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong SAR, China



-------------------------------------------------
This mail sent through IMP: http://horde.org/imp/