[huml] History, Introduction,Purpose and Scope of HumanML for CIDOC 2/03

Subject: [huml] History, Introduction,Purpose and Scope of HumanML for CIDOC 2/03

The Development, Purpose and Scope of the Human Markup Language:
A Brief History and Introduction

The effort to create The Human Markup Language, HumanML, started with Ranjeeth Kumar Thunga's frustration during his study of Psychology at XXX. It was due largely to the discrepancy in the rapid improvement of technology developed from the "hard" physical sciences of Biology, Physics, Chemistry, etc., and the lack of similar improvement in the "soft" human-centered sciences of Psychology, Sociology, Cultural Anthropology, etc. This discrepancy continued to occupy Ranjeeth Kumar Thunga as he entered into the workplace in the burgeoning arena of web development in the 1990s.

In this environment, Ranjeeth concluded that one way to help such improvements to human concerns in Information Technology was through XML, the eXtensible Markup Language. XML allows for standard vocabularies or "Markup Languages" to be developed in the various "domains" of information technology. XML allows for interoperability across digital information systems, platforms and software programs.

Ranjeeth started the Humanmarkup discussion list on YahooGroups in February, 2001 to explore how to bring technological improvements to the practices of soft "human" sciences.

The initial discussions were captured in the archives of YahooGroups. The discussions brought out a number of purposes to which various members wished to see improvements.

Chief among these purposes was clarifying communication, especially within digital information systems. It was also seen that standardizing Human Information was occuring in various efforts to establish a system to assure uniform authentication of basic Human Identity.

Extending this to ensure both greater depth of individual information and control over that information was identified as another important purpose.

Further purposes were identified by application-area. Among them were:

* Anthropology

* Archeology

* Artificial Intelligence

* Biometrics

* Business Decision Support (Heuristics)

* Communications

* Conflict Resolution

* Cultural Studies

* Diplomacy

* Economics

* Emergency Services

* Government Record Keeping

* Human Behavior Representation

* Individual Personalization and Identity Authentication Enhancement

* Linguistics

* Marketing

* Medicine

* Psychology

* Sociology

* Virtual Reality

It was decided that HumanML would consist of XML Schemata for defining use of terms and RDF Schemata to associate those terms with standard resources in Academic, Governmental and Business use to ensure interoperability. It was also decided to associate HumanML with standard Ontological and Taxonomic frameworks.

It was decided to concentrate on improving communication as the mission and to move the effort to OASIS, The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards, to provide public access, credibility and the protection of Intellectual Property Rights for the standard specifications anticipated.

The OASIS HumanMarkup Technical Committee was established in September, 2001.

The early months of the TC were spent in gathering requirements, during which the principles of Semiotics, or Semiology, were adopted as the guiding prinicples of this effort.

We delivered our first version of a Requirements Document April 31, 2002:
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/humanmarkup/schema/huml-primary-base-1.0.xsd

and our first Committee Specification, The Human Markup Language Primary Base XML Specification 1.0 December 12, 2002, which was modified slightly after an initial Public Comment Period of Thirty (30) days and adopted January 12, 2003:

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