[xtm-wg] XTM-UCS Analysis

["Bryan Thompson" <bryan@globalwisdom.org>]

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This from Ann,

   Date: Fri, 8 Sep 2000 10:33:46 +0100
   From: "Wrightson, Ann" <Ann.Wrightson@sweetandmaxwell.co.uk>
Subject: XTM-UCS - Categorization of usecases received

Bryan - please forward this to your supplementary list, as I've mislaid the
id (sorry!).

The level of information given was very variable, with some few "use cases"
amounting to brief designations of application areas only. However, I think
that something useful can be said from the information received about the
nature of the more specific usecases, as follows:

There appears to be a natural breakdown into three/four types:

1. 20 usecases: Enabling navigation and structured use of various kinds of
content, often diverse
	1a: various kinds of standoff markup, mostly metadata (4 "pure"
ones)
	1b: Encoding explicit linking/routing information for use by
navigating applications (16 b or mixed a & b)

2. 5 usecases: Topical organization, mostly looking like taxonomy-style
concept-structures

3. 6 usecases: accurate exchange of content organization and metastructures.

The good thing is that I don't think this holds any surprises. Also, to a
large extent these divisions are "just" different views on the same
functional requirements - simplistically: (1) focus on the functionality you
get when (2) are made operational, using (3) to aid communication across
remote sites.

(3) is the core intent of 13250, and I think pretty well understood in the
group after the xtm-mg modelling exercise.

(2) has some existing sound underlying theory, and public-domain
publications we can draw on for generic work and simple non-toy examples (eg
for those of you who don't know it, I strongly recommend the work in
elucidating concepts in this area being undertaken by the research group at
www.ladseb.pd.cnr.it/infor/ontology/ontology.html)

(1) is the domain of the most detailed usecases submitted so far, and I will
be looking further at these examples. I believe that an appropriate
underlying theory for this area can be found in the work of Barwise &
Seligman (see their 1997 book "Information Flow - the logic of distributed
systems", Cambridge UP theoretical tracts in computer science #44) - (& at
this point I'd better confess that I've been bending the XTM ground rules
for this phase by contributing informally, from that viewpoint, to the CM
group too...).

Cheers

Ann W.


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