OASIS HumanMarkup TC First Meeting Minutes

OASIS HumanMarkup Technical Committee Meeting Minutes 17 September 2001

Officers Roll:
Ranjeeth K. Thunga        Chair
Joseph W. Norris           Co-Editor
Rex Brooks,            Secretary, Webmaster

Members Roll:
Kurt Cagle,
Sudhakar Gorti,
Rob Nixon,
Sean Palmer
Sandy Ressler
(Karl Best attended, and one interested caller, Sylvia Candelaria was allowed to monitor while a line was available)

Initial Business:

Ranjeeth Kumar opened the meeting by introducing himself, the Chair, Rex Brooks, the Secretaryand Karl Best representing OASIS. The Roll was called by Rex, as reported above and Karl Best gave the meeting a brief overview of the OASIS Technical Committee Process. This overview included making the point that contributions to our work must be unencumbered by copyrights restricting free and open use of any part of the contribution. It was also made clear that attendance by qualified OASIS members at today's meeting constitutes the initial membership of the OASIS HumanMarkup Technical Committee. Qualified OASIS members unable to attend become Prospective Members by the eligibility rules.

The Charter of the OASIS HumanMarkup Technical Committee which reads:

"Charter

The HumanMarkup TC is set forth to develop the HumanML and associated specifications. HumanML is designed to represent human characteristics through XML. The aim is to enhance the fidelity of human communication.
HumanML is set forth to be an XML Schema and RDF Schema specification, containing sets of modules which frame and embed contextual human characteristics including physical, cultural, social, kinesic, psychological, and intentional features within conveyed information. Other efforts within the scope of the HumanMarkup TC include messaging, style, alternate schemas, constraint mechanisms, object models, and repository systems, which will address the overall concerns of both representing and amalgamating human information within data.
Examples of human characteristics include emotions, physical descriptors, proxemics, kinesics, haptics, intentions, and attitude. Applications of HumanML include agents of various types, AI systems, virtual reality, psychotherapy, online negotiations, facilitations, dialogue, and conflict resolution systems."

was unanimously approved by the Committee.

The usual OASIS policy of offering to OASIS membership the privilege of attending any Technical Committee Meeting was unanimously accepted by the Committee for its meetings.

The Responsibilities of the Officers of the Committee for the Chair, Secretary and Webmaster, as currently established were reviewed and the open position of Editor was opened to volunteers. Without dissent or reservation Joseph Norris accepted assignment as the Non-Technical Editor of the Committee and Kurt Cagle accepted assignment as the Technical Editor of the Committee.

The issue of establishing ofiicial or unoffical Liaisons with other OASIS Technical Committees and/or other Working Groups or Committees of other Standards Organizations was tabled and put on the Agenda for the next Committee meeting. Karl gave the OASIS position on such Liaisons, which is that Committees are allowed to form their own such Liaisons. Interested parties should attend the next Committee meeting with proposals ready for consideration.

The issue of forming Subcommittees for various tasks or areas of development for the Human Markup Language was divided and tabled as follows. The Committee will consider forming Subcommittees for exploring   or developing the areas of: Applications; XML and RDF Schemata; Setting and Accomplishing Tasks such as collecting and synopsizing posts, constructing our core documents and auxilliary documents and meeting our deliverables schedule; Adding Non-Technical Committee members to Subcommittees as "Invited Experts;" and Determining whether or not to restrict the number of Subcommittees on which Technical Committee Members may serve.

The Committee Meeting Schedule was set without dissent for the third Wednesday of each Month at 12:00 Noon Eastern Time, and pending an unofficial experiment, it was established that an open, publicly available chat venue that is both capable of being logged and reliable for the purpose of assuring public availability could be used for the purpose of holding this Technical Committeešs meetings.

As part of our initial project plan, it was decided that we would begin work on constructing Four (4) Core Topic Documents: HM.Frameworks (combining Domains, Taxonomies and Ontologies); HM.Applications; HM.Requirements; and HM.Interoperability (formerly Integrations). These documents are to describe the areas which the Human Markup Language Specification addresses, what it is designed to do, what it must do to accomplish this and how it will work with other xml languages and protocols.

The issue of providing for a repository of working documents to and from which Committee and Subcommittee members may upload and download material while conducting Committee and Subcommittee work was discussed and tabled for later consideration.

Finally, Technical Committee Members were requested to post on the public comments lists a biographical sketch describing their background, their interest in HumanMarkup and what they hope to accomplish with HumanMarkup.

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