[UPS] follow-up from workshop: proposal for technical working group

[Hussein Suleman]

hi

let me start by saying that the workshop at DL00 was a great success for
the OA initiative in that there was implicit agreement on many issues,
including the following (at least from my perspective) :-

1. there is a need to impose some form of formal organizational
structure on the initiative for more effective/efficient management
2. the standards are not set in stone and we can change them to better
suit the existing and impending range of applications
3. we need a thorough evaluation-based re-engineering of the standards,
ultimately leading to a "version 2"

chiefly because of time constraints we were not able to delve further
into the solutions to each of these - i'm going to try to address the
last 2 points.

to take the initiative, i want to propose the formation of an open
working group to deal with technical issues. i do not believe this
mailing list is the forum for discussions on "semicolons and slashes",
as we need to separate policy/outreach from the technicalities of
implementation.

im writing this up somewhat formally, because even though we dont need a
rigid structure, we need to state what we're about to avoid
organizational snafu's later ...

===
Proposal: Working Group on Technical Issues related to Specifications of
the Open Archives Initiative

Context:
A working group of the Open Archive initiative.

Objectives:
1. Evaluate current specifications and make recommendations for changes
to address current and future problems
2. Produce a "version 2" specification by December 2000 (i recall this
was suggested at the workshop)
3. Provide a forum for discussion of technical issues not of interest to
the general community

Membership:
Open to all who are interested.

Suggested Methods of Communication:
1. A mailing list for separate discussion of in-depth technical issues
(Ed Fox and I just created such a list in case we need one)
2. A website listing all open/resolved issues, with history,
explanations, etc. (anyone want to maintain this? or does someone have
an issue-tracking system we can use?)
3. A meeting of protocol implementors to discuss/evaluate "version 2"
specifications/implementations before formally recommending a change of
specifications (this was suggested at the workshop).

Management:
1. One or more Website Administrators if necessary (voluntary positions)
2. One of more Mailing List Administrators if necessary (voluntary
positions)
3. One or more Coordinators to coordinate the activities of the working
group and liaise with the OAi Steering Committee (nominated by working
group).
===

i know this sounds like overkill, but im a strong advocate of building
organization from the ground up. in essence, all im proposing is that
those of us interested in technical issues join a new mailing list,
someone volunteer to manage it, someone volunteer to manage an issue
list and we nominate coordinator/s ...

thoughts ? (if there are no principle objections, it may be better to
simply initiate the second mailing list and move further discussion
there)

i want to put off responding to Simeon and Robert's comments until we
take a decision on where that discussion is to take place.

and, lastly, before we publish the "proceedings" of the workshop, if
anyone who attended wants to add a position statement you can still do
so through the workshop website at http://purl.org/net/oaijune00/

ttfn

hussein

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hussein suleman - hussein@vt.edu - vt cs - http://purl.org/net/hussein
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