Interoperability frameworks for exchange of information between diverse management systems Luis Anido-Rifon

1
Interoperability frameworks for exchange of
information between diverse management
systemsLuis Anido-Rifon University of Vigo
(ES) Niall Sclater University of Strathclyde
(Sco)
CEN/ISSS Workshop Learning Technologies, July
7-8. Tessaloniki
2
Agenda

• Decisions from Paris
• Current State
• Draft CWA-1
• Draft CWA-2
• Next Steps

Interoperability frameworks for exchange of
information between diverse management systems
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Decisions from Paris (i)

• The main task of the PT should be to act as a
  gateway between OASIS and the WS. An overall
  objective should be to publish one or more CWAs
  containing results from OASIS.

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information between diverse management systems
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Decisions from Paris (ii)

• Focus on WP2 as this is producing the OASIS data
  model and adaptation of the SIF architecture.
  OASIS WP2 is interested in publishing its
  outcomes as CWAs.

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information between diverse management systems
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Decisions from Paris (iii)

• A joint document (eventually producing a CWA on
  Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
  with other standards/specs) will be of interest
  for both OASIS and SIF. This document will focus
  on identifying issues rather than proposing
  solutions.

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information between diverse management systems
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Decisions from Paris (iv)

• The PT will assist with Quality control for the
  OASIS WP2 intermediate deliverables.

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information between diverse management systems
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Decisions from Paris (v)

• Proposed CWAs
• Review/Adaptation of SIF Infrastructure,
  Architecture, Message Processing and Transport
  Layer. (draft-Q2 , final Q3)
• Internationalisation of SIF and Harmonisation
  with other standards/specs (draft Q2, final Q3)
• Adaptation of SIF data model for a European
  context (draft Q3, final Q4)

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information between diverse management systems
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Decisions from Paris (v)

• Proposed CWAs
• Review/Adaptation of SIF Infrastructure,
  Architecture, Message Processing and Transport
  Layer. (draft-Q2 , final Q3)
• Internationalisation of SIF and Harmonisation
  with other standards/specs (draft Q2, final Q3)
• Adaptation of SIF data model for a European
  context (draft Q3, final Q4)

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information between diverse management systems
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Open Questions

• Should the Review/Adaptation of SIF
  Infrastructure, Architecture, Message Processing
  and Transport Layer eventually become a CEN
  Workshop Agreement?
• The WS decided in Paris to wait till the PT
  produced a first draft

Interoperability frameworks for exchange of
information between diverse management systems
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Open Questions

• Should the Review/Adaptation of SIF
  Infrastructure, Architecture, Message Processing
  and Transport Layer eventually become a CEN
  Workshop Agreement?
• The PT now suggests to publish the final version
  of this document as a CWA since it provides
  valuable contributions to the SIF specification.

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information between diverse management systems
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SIF Infrastructure, Architecture, Message
Processing and Transport Layer

• Organization of the draft document
• 1.- Introduction
• 2.- SIF Message Passing
• 3.- SIF Architecture
• 4.- SIF Infrastructure
• 5.- HTTPS and its use by the SIF Infrastructure
  Transport Layer
• 6.- CEN/ISSS WS-LT Recommendations
• 7.- References

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information between diverse management systems
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SIF Infrastructure, Architecture, Message
Processing and Transport Layer

• 1.- Introduction
• Overall view of this report, which includes four
  deliverables of OASIS and the PT comments on them
  to
• 1.- Provide an external review to improve the
  OASIS deliverables.
• 2.- Work out a set of recommendations (CWA) for
  the SIF and SIF-based specification developers.

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information between diverse management systems
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SIF Infrastructure, Architecture, Message
Processing and Transport Layer

• 2.- SIF Message Passing
• This section gives a general overview of
  Messaging and discusses the SIF message passing
  mechanism and the Java Messaging Service (JMS)
• The gist of this section is the recommendation
  made by OASIS to adopt JMS as its messaging
  service

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information between diverse management systems
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SIF Infrastructure, Architecture, Message
Processing and Transport Layer

• 2.- SIF Message Passing (Comments by the PT)
• The OASIS review on SIF Message Passing proposes
  the use of JMS at this level. The CEN/ISSS WS-LT
  Project Team has identified two main drawbacks
  insofar this recommendation is concerned
•  
• 1.- Although JMS is an open specification with a
  clearly defined procedure to specify interfaces
  for message passing, it is tied to a particular
  technology. Open specifications should try to
  keep them technology independent.

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information between diverse management systems
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SIF Infrastructure, Architecture, Message
Processing and Transport Layer

• 2.- SIF Message Passing (Comments by the PT)
• The OASIS review on SIF Message Passing proposes
  the use of JMS at this level. The CEN/ISSS WS-LT
  Project Team has identified two main drawbacks
  insofar this recommendation is concerned
•  
• 2.- The business logic behind the message
  passing, including message processing cannot be
  directly specified using JMS. Therefore, the same
  SIF rules must be kept in the specification. JMS
  appears as a higher level interface to
  encapsulate the business logic for message
  interchange.

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information between diverse management systems
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SIF Infrastructure, Architecture, Message
Processing and Transport Layer

• 2.- SIF Message Passing (Comments by the PT)
• Message Processing and Passing business logic is
  specified in SIF using the natural language.
  Textual descriptions with some graphics are used
  to describe how messages should be exchange and
  how they should be processed by the different
  parties involved.

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information between diverse management systems
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SIF Infrastructure, Architecture, Message
Processing and Transport Layer

• 2.- SIF Message Passing (Comments by the PT)
• The CEN/ISSS WS-LT PT recommends at this level
•  
• Formalize the SIF specification insofar message
  passing and message processing is concerned,
  using a modelling mechanism as open and
  technology and platform independent as possible.

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information between diverse management systems
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SIF Infrastructure, Architecture, Message
Processing and Transport Layer

• 2.- SIF Message Passing (Comments by the PT)
• The following two alternatives may be considered
  by SIF and OASIS and further studied
• 1.      The Unified Modelling Language (UML).
• 2. The Business Process Execution Language for
  Web Services, BPEL4WS, which is being developed
  by a group of enterprises and institutions
  grouped in a Consortium "Organization for the
  Advancement of Structured Information Standards".
  Or the W3Cs Web Services Choreography whose
  main target is to define an official
  recommendation of a business process definition
  language.

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information between diverse management systems
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SIF Infrastructure, Architecture, Message
Processing and Transport Layer

• 2.- SIF Message Passing (Comments by the PT)

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information between diverse management systems
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SIF Infrastructure, Architecture, Message
Processing and Transport Layer

• 2.- SIF Message Passing (Comments by the PT)
• Interoperability at the low level
• Instead of the SIF-defined binding over HTTPS
  (section 3.6 of SIF specification), the PT
  proposes the use of SOAP, a widely used XML-based
  protocol over HTTP.

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information between diverse management systems
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SIF Infrastructure, Architecture, Message
Processing and Transport Layer

• 2.- SIF Message Passing (Comments by the PT)
• APIs for Message Processing and Message Passing
• The business logic for SIF message processing and
  passing needs to be formally specified to
  guarantee interoperability. This must be included
  as a normative section in the SIF specification.
  There is no need to identify common APIs to
  encapsulate this logic, since the
  interoperability is guaranteed by the
  implementation of a common API, not by the API
  itself.

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information between diverse management systems
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SIF Infrastructure, Architecture, Message
Processing and Transport Layer

• 2.- SIF Message Passing (Comments by the PT)
• APIs for Message Processing and Message Passing
• Nevertheless, the specification of a common
  interface may be proposed as a way to promote the
  development of reusable components, which, in
  turn, could be used by those developing
  SIF-compliant software. This type of interface
  definition should be included in a best
  practice-like document (no normative document).

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information between diverse management systems
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SIF Infrastructure, Architecture, Message
Processing and Transport Layer

• 2.- SIF Message Passing (Comments by the PT)
• APIs for Message Processing and Message Passing
• Such a specification should be defined using a
  interface definition language as open and
  technology independent as possible. The OMGs
  Interface Definition Language (IDL) is the IDL
  proposed by this PT to be analyzed. However, any
  other interface language should be appropriate
  enough provided it has no tie to any technology
  or implementation environment.

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information between diverse management systems
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SIF Infrastructure, Architecture, Message
Processing and Transport Layer

• 2.- SIF Message Passing (Comments by the PT)
• APIs for Message Processing and Message Passing
• Once the Application Programming Interface were
  specified at the conceptual level the next step
  should be to bind this conceptual interface to
  concrete interfaces for particular technologies
  and programming languages (e.g. Java, C, etc.).
  Such bindings may be included in additional
  documents or appendixes to the SIF APIs best
  practice guidelines.

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information between diverse management systems
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SIF Infrastructure, Architecture, Message
Processing and Transport Layer

• 2.- SIF Message Passing (Comments by the PT)
• APIs for Message Processing and Message Passing
• This is where a proposal for using a concrete
  Application Programming Interface for Message
  Passing, like JMS, makes more sense. A Java-based
  API should appear as a binding of the previously
  proposed conceptual API for Java. JMS may be
  included as the off-the-shelf procedure to
  encapsulate message passing.

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information between diverse management systems
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SIF Infrastructure, Architecture, Message
Processing and Transport Layer

• 3.- SIF Architecture
• This section includes a review on the SIF
  Architecture made by the OASIS team.

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information between diverse management systems
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SIF Infrastructure, Architecture, Message
Processing and Transport Layer

• 3.- SIF Architecture (Comments by PT)
• A deeper analysis of what is presented in section
  3 of SIF specification 3 leads this CEN/ISSS
  WS-LT PT to recommend the re-organization of the
  SIF specification in order to keep Architecture
  and Infrastructure clearly separated in the
  specification.

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information between diverse management systems
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SIF Infrastructure, Architecture, Message
Processing and Transport Layer

• 3.- SIF Architecture (Comments by PT)
• What is Architecture and what is
  Infrastructure is a complex issue that always
  implies a certain degree of subjectivity.
  Nevertheless, there are several cases where both
  concepts are clearly mixed in the original SIF
  specification.

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information between diverse management systems
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SIF Infrastructure, Architecture, Message
Processing and Transport Layer

• 3.- SIF Architecture (Comments by PT)
• For example, section 3 is devoted to the SIF
  architecture, whereas some of its subsections
  clearly deals with infrastructure
•  
• Section 3.5 that deals with Message Processing.

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information between diverse management systems
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SIF Infrastructure, Architecture, Message
Processing and Transport Layer

• 3.- SIF Architecture (Comments by PT)
• For example, section 3 is devoted to the SIF
  architecture, whereas some of its subsections
  clearly deals with infrastructure
•  
• Section 3.6 that corresponds with Infrastructure
  Transport Layer

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information between diverse management systems
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SIF Infrastructure, Architecture, Message
Processing and Transport Layer

• 3.- SIF Architecture (Comments by PT)
• For example, section 3 is devoted to the SIF
  architecture, whereas some of its subsections
  clearly deals with infrastructure
•  
• Section 3.4.5.6 that manages the Use of Selective
  Message Blocking (SMB) to Resolve Deadlocks

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information between diverse management systems
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SIF Infrastructure, Architecture, Message
Processing and Transport Layer

• 3.- SIF Architecture (Comments by PT)
• The SIF specification developers should consider
  a re-organization of their documents.
• The PT proposes (section 3.8.1 in this report) a
  possible re-organization.

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information between diverse management systems
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SIF Infrastructure, Architecture, Message
Processing and Transport Layer

• 3.- SIF Architecture (Comments by PT)
• OASIS proposes three alternatives to deal with
  Multi-linguality at this level.
• This PT recommends to deal with multi-linguality
  issues at the data model level, following the
  same approach like, for example, in the LOM
  specification.

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information between diverse management systems
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SIF Infrastructure, Architecture, Message
Processing and Transport Layer

• 3.- SIF Architecture (Comments by PT)
• OASIS recommends to include a SET Management
  operation.
• Nevertheless, this would involve a deeper
  analysis of the asynchronous communication model
  to avoid data inconsistencies in this distributed
  asynchronous-based environment.

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information between diverse management systems
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SIF Infrastructure, Architecture, Message
Processing and Transport Layer

• 3.- SIF Architecture (Comments by PT)
• OASIS recommends to include a SET Management
  operation.
• Currently, there is no need to include such
  operation in the SIF model. Therefore, this PT
  does not support this OASIS proposal.

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information between diverse management systems
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SIF Infrastructure, Architecture, Message
Processing and Transport Layer

• 3.- SIF Architecture (Comments by PT)
• This OASIS review is based on SIF specification
  1.0r1. This version has been updated to 1.1. Due
  to this, the OASIS report includes some
  inconsistencies with the latest SIF
  specification. Some of them were detected by the
  CEN/ISSS WS-LT PT and pointed out in our report.

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information between diverse management systems
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SIF Infrastructure, Architecture, Message
Processing and Transport Layer

• 4.- SIF Infrastructure
• The purpose of this OASIS deliverable is to
  provide a report on the SIF infrastructure and
  its relevance to the OASIS project.

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information between diverse management systems
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SIF Infrastructure, Architecture, Message
Processing and Transport Layer

• 4.- SIF Infrastructure (PT comments)
• Because these OASIS reports have been developed
  by different partners, some inconsistencies have
  been detected by this PT. One of them regarding
  multilinguality was detected in this section and
  reported to OASIS.

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information between diverse management systems
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SIF Infrastructure, Architecture, Message
Processing and Transport Layer

• 5.- HTTPS and its use by the SIF Infrastructure
  Transport Layer
• This report describes the use of HTTPS by SIF,
  including its use to encapsulate and transfer
  data objects.

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information between diverse management systems
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SIF Infrastructure, Architecture, Message
Processing and Transport Layer

• 5.- HTTPS and its use by the SIF Infrastructure
  Transport Layer (PT comments)
• As explained in the SIF specification document
  (section 3.6) the Infrastructure messages are
  used by SIF to encapsulate and transfer the data
  objects.

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information between diverse management systems
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SIF Infrastructure, Architecture, Message
Processing and Transport Layer

• 5.- HTTPS and its use by the SIF Infrastructure
  Transport Layer (PT comments)
• This PT recommends to use SOAP instead of the
  proprietary SIF mechanism to encapsulate and
  transfer XML data over HTTP.

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information between diverse management systems
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SIF Infrastructure, Architecture, Message
Processing and Transport Layer

• 5.- HTTPS and its use by the SIF Infrastructure
  Transport Layer (PT comments)
• In fact, SIF references SOAP and proposed its
  study for further adoption. SOAP was not adopted
  by SIF to provide interoperability at this level
  simply because it was not available at the time
  SIF was defined.

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information between diverse management systems
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SIF Infrastructure, Architecture, Message
Processing and Transport Layer

• 6.- CEN/ISSS WS-LT Recommendations
• Update the OASIS report to the last available SIF
  specification (only minor changes)

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information between diverse management systems
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SIF Infrastructure, Architecture, Message
Processing and Transport Layer

• 6.- CEN/ISSS WS-LT Recommendations
• General overview on SIF infrastructure
  Interoperability layers

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information between diverse management systems
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SIF Infrastructure, Architecture, Message
Processing and Transport Layer

• 6.- CEN/ISSS WS-LT Recommendations
• General overview on SIF infrastructure
  Interoperability layers

Interoperability frameworks for exchange of
information between diverse management systems
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SIF Infrastructure, Architecture, Message
Processing and Transport Layer

• 6.- CEN/ISSS WS-LT Recommendations
• General overview on SIF infrastructure
  Interoperability layers

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information between diverse management systems
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SIF Infrastructure, Architecture, Message
Processing and Transport Layer

• 6.- CEN/ISSS WS-LT Recommendations
• RECOMMENDATION 1
• Re-organize the SIF specification, in particular
  the section dealing with Architecture, in order
  to clearly separate the specification on the SIF
  Architecture and the SIF Infrastructure.
  Section 3.8.1 presents an initial proposal that
  may be used as a starting point.

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information between diverse management systems
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SIF Infrastructure, Architecture, Message
Processing and Transport Layer

• 6.- CEN/ISSS WS-LT Recommendations
• RECOMMENDATION 2
• To formally specify the SIF message model
  including message format and message processing
  rules. For this, the use of UML or BPEL4WS (see
  section 2.10) may be considered.

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information between diverse management systems
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SIF Infrastructure, Architecture, Message
Processing and Transport Layer

• 6.- CEN/ISSS WS-LT Recommendations
• RECOMMENDATION 2.bis (not included in the report)
• To develop a non-normative best-practice guide
  including an API where the message processing is
  encapsulated. This will promote the development
  of SIF-compliant reusable components. IDL may be
  studied as an initial proposal to define the
  interface. Bindings to particular programming
  languages may also be developed (e.g. a JMS-based
  for Java).

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information between diverse management systems
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SIF Infrastructure, Architecture, Message
Processing and Transport Layer

• 6.- CEN/ISSS WS-LT Recommendations
• RECOMMENDATION 3
• To adopt the use of W3Cs SOAP as the mechanism
  to encapsulate and exchange messages over HTTPS
  in the SIF infrastructure model.

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information between diverse management systems
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SIF Infrastructure, Architecture, Message
Processing and Transport Layer

• 6.- CEN/ISSS WS-LT Recommendations
• RECOMMENDATION 4
• To define logical operations apart from the
  equality and a more elaborated language for SIF
  objects queries. (oasis rec.)

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Open Question

• 1.- Should this report become a CWA?
• The PTs answer is YES. A good set of
  recommendations (both from OASIS and the PT) may
  be included in a CWA on SIF Infrastructure,
  Architecture, Message Processing and Transport
  Layer.
• Any comment?

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Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• Organization of the draft document
• 1.- Foreword
• 2.- Introduction to SIF
• 3.- Scope
• 4.- Abbreviations
• 5.- Stakeholders
• 6.- SIF Data Model

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information between diverse management systems
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Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• Organization of the draft document
• 7.- Internationalisation of the SIF data model
• 8.- Harmonisation of SIF with other Standars and
  Specifications
• 9.- Detailed analysis of SIF Data Model
• 1o.- Recommendations
• 11.- References

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information between diverse management systems
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Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 7.- Internationalisation SIF
• 7.1 Objects that should be further studied.
• This section identifies two objects
  StudentSectionEnrollment and TermInfo that may
  not be applicable for non-US educational
  environments. This sub-section will be updated as
  a summary of the Detailed Analysis of the SIF
  data model (to be developed as section 9)

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Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 7.- Internationalisation SIF
• 7.2 Repertoires for data coding
• The SIF specification does not identify the
  character set repertoire that should be used to
  represent textual information. Nevertheless, this
  is an important issue when dealing with
  multi-lingual environments. There are several
  recommendations that could be done at this point.

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Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 7.- Internationalisation SIF
• 7.2 Repertoires for data coding
• 1.- The SIF specification may be updated to
  define a repertoire character set wide enough to
  cope with as many languages as possible,
  including Asian languages and those where the
  writing style (left to right or viceversa and top
  to botton or viceversa) is different from the
  western style. An interesting starting point
  would be to analyse the ISO/IEC 10646 and
  UNICODE.

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Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 7.- Internationalisation SIF
• 7.2 Repertoires for data coding
• 2.- Those SIF-based projects that adapt the
  American specification to their particular
  cultural and lingual environment should take into
  account what the appropriate repertoire character
  set is. In this case, special attention should be
  paid to those cases where it is possible to have
  SIF zones or federation of SIF zones that cover
  different cultural areas with different needs as
  far as character set repertoires is concerned.

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Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 7.- Internationalisation SIF
• 7.3 Actions on Language elements
• The value space for Language (Demographics
  object) and LanguageOfInstruction (SectionInfo
  object) is the ANSI/ISO Z39.53-2001 Codes for
  the Representation of Languages for Information
  Interchange. This standard defines a set of
  three-letter codes for language identification.
  However, this language representation has several
  disadvantages for its use in a European
  environment.

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Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 7.- Internationalisation SIF
• 7.3 Actions on Language elements
• This format does not allow the use of dialects or
  variations not included in Z39.53. For example, a
  variation/dialect of Spanish, Asturian, is not
  included in Z39.50. This is the reason to
  recommend the following actions

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Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 7.- Internationalisation SIF
• 7.3 Actions on Language elements
• 1.- Adopt a standard wider than Z39.50. For
  example ISO 639-21988, which is a three-letter
  code for the representation of languages. This
  standard covers, for example the above mentioned
  dialect of Spanish.

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Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 7.- Internationalisation SIF
• 7.3 Actions on Language elements
• 2.- Although ISO 639-21988 covers a wider set of
  languages than the currently used in SIF Z39.53,
  there are situations where this is not enough
• 2.1.- Variations of the same language depending
  on the country where it is spoken cannot be
  managed using only the ISO standard. For example,
  there should be a mechanism to distinguish
  between the Mexican Spanish or the Spaniard
  Spanish, or the US English and the British
  English.

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Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 7.- Internationalisation SIF
• 7.3 Actions on Language elements
• 2.2. Variations of the same language depending on
  the region where it is spoken cannot be managed
  using only the ISO standard. For example, the
  following French variants Norman, Picard,
  Wallon, Angevin, Berrichon, Bourbonnais,
  Bourguignon, Franc-Comtois, Gallo, Lorraine,
  Poitevin, Santogeais) do not have an ISO code.

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Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 7.- Internationalisation SIF
• 7.3 Actions on Language elements
• The following format is proposed as an initial
  starting point
•  Langcode(-Subcode(-Variant))
• where
• Langcode Three letter code according to the
  standard ISO 639-21988
• Subcode Two letter code for identification of
  countries ISO 3166-11997
• Variant Code for the variation of the language
  identified by the previous two codes.

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Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 7.- Internationalisation SIF
• 7.4 Actions on Date elements
• SIF Data Model does not specify how dates should
  be represented. The only reference in the
  specification to date format is in the section
  where encapsulation of SIF messages over HTTP is
  presented. In this case the format is, obviously,
  the format defined in the HTTP RFC (RFC 2616)
  CCYYMMDD. This format is followed by the SIF Data
  Model.

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Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 7.- Internationalisation SIF
• 7.4 Actions on Date elements
• Nevertheless, this CWA recommends to explicitly
  define the date format in the conceptual data
  model description section within the SIF
  specification. For this, an initial proposal may
  be a widely used standard like ISO 8601.

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Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 7.- Internationalisation SIF
• 7.4 Actions on Date elements
• In addition, if SIF is to be used in
  multi-cultural environments a more elaborated
  proposal should be taken. Specially, if a SIF
  zone may cover a multi-cultural geographical area
  or if SIF federation may lead to exchange of data
  among heterogeneous cultural regions.

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Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 7.- Internationalisation SIF
• 7.4 Actions on Date elements
• Although the format proposed above assures
  interoperability, other national formats for
  dates or Eras (reference points) are not taken
  into account. Provided there exists a unique
  format/era reference in each country,
  localization would be identified using the
  country code (using ISO 3166-11997).

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Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 7.- Internationalisation SIF
• 7.4 Actions on Date elements
• In order to assure interoperability in a
  multicultural environment the ISO 86012000
  standard could be used as the canonical form to
  represent dates. The alternative representation
  proposed here should be used whenever providing a
  localized reference point in time is especially
  relevant (e.g. the first day of the Chinese year
  is not so clear pointed out in the Gregorian
  calendar).

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Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 7.- Internationalisation SIF
• 7.4 Actions on Date elements

Nr Name Explanation Value Space
1 DateTime A point in time with accuracy at least as small as second ISO 8601
2 Description Description of the date
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Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 7.- Internationalisation SIF
• 7.4 Actions on Date elements

Nr Name Explanation Value Space
3 DateTimeLocale
3.1 Locale Identifier for the country where the LocalizedDateTime applies. Country code from the code set ISO 3166
3.2 Source Identifier of the source (standard or recommendation) that defines the specific date format for the country Repertoire of the ISO/IEC 10646
3.3 LocalizedDateTime The same point in time as in the DateTime element but formatted according to the specific localization Repertoire of the ISO/IEC 10646
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Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
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• 7.- Internationalisation SIF
• 7.4 Actions on Date elements

ltDATETIMEgt2003-12-25lt/DATETIMEgt ltDATETIMELOCALEgt
ltLOCALEgtUKlt/LOCALEgt ltLOCALIZEDDATETIMEgt25/12/03lt
/LOCALIZEDDATETIMEgt lt/DATETIMELOCALEgt ltDATETIMELO
CALEgt ltLOCALEgtAElt/LOCALEgt ltSOURCEgthttp//standar
ds.org/ae/calendarTextSpecs.pdflt/SOURCEgt ltLOCALIZ
EDDATETIMEgt1 Dhul-Qadah 1424lt/LOCALIZEDDATETIMEgt
lt/DATETIMELOCALEgt
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Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 7.- Internationalisation SIF
• 7.5 Actions on currency objects
• There are several elements in the SIF Data Model
  that are defined to encapsulate numbers
  representing money.  
• In order to cope with multi-currency
  environments, the following recommendations are
  proposed

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Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 7.- Internationalisation SIF
• 7.5 Actions on currency objects
• 1.- The previously presented objects should be
  extended to allow the specification of the
  particular currency being used. A straightforward
  solution, which may be considered as an initial
  approach, is to create an aggregate data element
  (e.g. monetaryamount) with two sub-elements (e.g.
  amount, currency) being the latter the identifier
  of the currency used. Also, the different
  representations for amounts may have to be taken
  into account (e.g. for the amount one thousand
  and fifty six cents the representation may be
  1.000,56 or 1,000.56)

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Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 7.- Internationalisation SIF
• 7.5 Actions on currency objects
• 2.- The identifier for the currency must follow a
  widely used standard. An initial approach may be
  to use ISO 42172001. Codes for the
  representation of currencies and funds, which
  includes a three letter code for each currency. A
  further study is needed to check if this standard
  also supports different formats for the
  representation of amounts.

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Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 7.- Internationalisation SIF
• 7.5 Actions on currency objects

Nr Name Explanation Value Space
1 Currency Identifier of the currency Unit ISO 42172001
2 Amount Number indicating the amount of money
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with other specs/standards

• 7.- Internationalisation SIF
• 7.5 Actions on currency objects
• lt!-- Example 1 Currency element with Euro
  currency type--gt
• ltMonetaryAmountgt
• ltCurrencygtEURlt/Currencygt
• ltAmountgt45.96lt/Amountgt
• lt/MonetaryAmountgt

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Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 7.- Internationalisation SIF
• 7.5 Actions on currency objects
• lt!-- Example 1 Currency element with Euro
  currency type (attribute approach)--gt
• ltMonetaryAmount TypeEURgt
• 45.96
• lt/MonetaryAmountgt

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Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 7.- Internationalisation SIF
• 7.6 Actions on measurement objects
• There are several objects with elements whose
  value represent measurements (e.g. RouteDistance
  in object BusRouteInfo). The SIF Data Model makes
  no reference to the possibility of using these
  objects in an environment where several
  measurement formats are used. Two recommendations
  are made

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information between diverse management systems
80
Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 7.- Internationalisation SIF
• 7.6 Actions on measurement objects
• 1.- The previously presented object should be
  extended to allow the specification of the
  particular measurement type being used (e.g.
  miles, feet, pounds, kilometres, kilos). A
  straightforward solution, which may be considered
  as an initial approach, is to create an aggregate
  data element (e.g. measurement) with two
  sub-elements (e.g. amount, unit) being the latter
  the identifier of the measurement type being
  used.

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Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 7.- Internationalisation SIF
• 7.6 Actions on measurement objects
• 2.- The identifier for the measurement must
  follow a widely used standard. An initial
  approach may be to use ISO 311992, Quantities
  and Units. Part 0 General Principles, Units and
  Symbols. Part 1 Space and time.

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Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 7.- Internationalisation SIF
• 7.6 Actions on measurement objects

Nr Name Explanation Value Space
1 Unit Identifier of the measurement unit ISO 311992
2 Amount Number indicating the measure
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Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 7.- Internationalisation SIF
• 7.6 Actions on measurement objects
• lt!-- Example 1 Longitude measurement using
  Kilometers as unit--gt
• ltMeasurementgt
• ltUnitgtKTMlt/Unitgt
• ltAmountgt6.7lt/Amountgt
• lt/Measurementgt

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Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 7.- Internationalisation SIF
• 7.6 Actions on measurement objects
• lt!-- Example 1 Longitude measurement element
  (attribute approach)--gt
• ltMeasurement unitKTMgt6.7lt/Measurementgt

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Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 7.- Internationalisation SIF
• 7.7 Actions on Vocabularies
• Many SIF data elements use vocabularies, defined
  by the SIF specification or externally defined in
  the set of codes SPEEDE (Standardization of
  Postsecondary Education Electronic Data Exchange)
  7 and NCESs STUDENTHB (Nacional Center for
  Education Statistics) 8.

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Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 7.- Internationalisation SIF
• 7.7 Actions on Vocabularies
• These codes are composed of an abbreviation,
  which, in turn, may be a two-number code, one,
  two or three-letter code or a combination of
  numbers and letters. The code is accompanied by a
  textual description of its meaning in the English
  language.
• There are two actions that may be taken on SIF
  vocabularies as far as internationalisation is
  concerned

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Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 7.- Internationalisation SIF
• 7.7 Actions on Vocabularies
• 1.-Elements within each vocabulary are described
  using a textual description in the English
  language. These descriptions should be translated
  into other languages. This action may be taken by
  the own SIF community following a gradual
  translation process.
• 2.- An alternative to this option may be to put
  this responsibility on each SIF-based initiative,
  which will be responsible for translating SIF
  vocabularies into those languages relevant for
  its geographical context

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Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 7.- Internationalisation SIF
• 7.7 Actions on Vocabularies
• 3.-Identify vocabularies where those proposed in
  SIF are not suitable for a given
  cultural/educational environment.

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Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 8.-Harmonisation
• 8.1 Introduction
• Due to the main aim of the SIF specification,
  information involved in message exchange is
  related to student management data and
  administration services.
• IMS LIP
• PAPI
• vCard

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Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 8.-Harmonisation
• 8.2 Identified issues
• 1.-Specifications introduced above defines
  standardized descriptions for learner personal
  information. This is the main areas where SIF may
  be harmonized with external specifications/standar
  ds. This CWA recommends to harmonise personal
  data information included in SIF specification
  using any of the standards/specifications
  introduced above. The specific standard that
  should be used needs to be decided after a deeper
  analysis by the SIF and SIF-based inititiatives
  specification developers.

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Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 8.-Harmonisation
• 8.2 Identified issues
• 2.-Many SIF data elements use vocabularies,
  defined by the SIF specification or externally
  defined in the set of codes SPEEDE and NCESs
  STUDENTHB. Additional elements may be needed to
  cover the specific geographic and cultural needs
  of each SIF-based environment. For the latter,
  SIF and SIF-based specification developers must
  take into account existing initiatives to develop
  taxonomies and vocabularies for the educational
  domain within their context. (e.g. ETB (European
  Treasury Browser) 9 or CEDEFOP (European Centre
  for the Development of Vocational Training)
  10).

92
Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 8.-Harmonisation
• 8.2 Identified issues
• 3.-The common data element MeetingTime defines a
  time slot for a specific course. The use of the
  vCalendar specification in this object should be
  further analysed.

93
Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 9.-Detailed analysis of the SIF data model
• To be developed

94
Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 10.-Recommendations
• 10.1 Recommendation 1.- Data coding
• The need
• The SIF specification does not identify the
  character set repertoire that should be used to
  represent textual information and this is an
  important issue when dealing with multi-lingual
  environments.
• Besides there is no way to specify the writing
  styles (left to right/right to left or
  horizontal/vertical).

95
Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 10.-Recommendations
• 10.1 Recommendation 1.- Data coding
• Action
• Update the SIF specification to define a
  repertoire character set wide enough to cope with
  as many languages as possible. A possible
  starting point would be to analyse the ISO/IEC
  10646 and UNICODE.
• An alternative would be to define, for each
  cultural environment where a SIF-based
  specification is to be used, which repertoire set
  is needed to properly represent the concrete
  language/s used in that context.

96
Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 10.-Recommendations
• 10.2 Recommendation 2.- Language elements
• The need
• The value space for Language (Demographics
  object) and LanguageOfInstruction (SectionInfo
  object) is the ANSI/NISO Z39.53-2001 Codes for
  the Representation of Languages for Information
  Interchange.
• This language representation has several
  disadvantages for its use in a European
  environment. This format does not allow the use
  of dialects or variations. For example, a
  variation/dialect of Spanish, Asturian, is not
  included in Z39.50.

97
Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 10.-Recommendations
• 10.2 Recommendation 1.- Language elements
• Action
• To define the use of a standard wider than
  Z39.50. For example ISO 639-21988, which is a
  three-letter code for the representation of
  languages.

98
Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 10.-Recommendations
• 10.3 Recommendation 3.- Variations of the
  language
• The need
• Variations of the same language depending on the
  country where it is spoken cannot be managed
  using the current format to represent languages
  in SIF.
• Variations of the same language depending on the
  region where it is spoken cannot be managed using
  only the ISO standard either.

99
Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 10.-Recommendations
• 10.3 Recommendation 3.- Variations of the
  language
• Action
• To adopt the following format
• Langcode(-Subcode(-Variant))
• where
• Langcode Three letter code according to the
  standard ISO 639-21988
• Subcode Two letter code for identification of
  countries ISO 3166-11997
• Variant Code for the variation of the language
  identified by the previous two codes.

100
Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 10.-Recommendations
• 10.4 Recommendation 4.- Data-value elements
• The need
• SIF Data Model does not specify how dates should
  be represented. The only reference in the
  specification to date format is in the section
  where encapsulation of SIF messages over HTTP is
  presented. Specification of dates formats should
  be done at the conceptual data level.

101
Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 10.-Recommendations
• 10.4 Recommendation 4.- Date-value elements
• Action
• To explicitly define the date format in the
  conceptual data model description section within
  the SIF specification. For this, an initial
  proposal may be a widely used standard like ISO
  8601. The proposed format by this PT is in the
  form YYYY-MM-DD, as ISO 86012000 recommends.
• To add an extension to the specification of the
  DateTime item in order to give the possibility to
  use a Localized Date-Time when it can be relevant
  for a particular cultural context. The extension
  recommended by this CWA is reported at section
  7.4 of this document.

102
Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 10.-Recommendations
• 10.5 Recommendation 5.- Currency-based values
• The need
• There are several elements in the SIF Data Model
  that are defined to encapsulate numbers
  representing money (e.g. BilledAmount in the
  object BillingObject).

103
Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 10.-Recommendations
• 10.5 Recommendation 5.- Currency-based values
• Action
• The previously presented objects should be
  extended to allow the specification of the
  particular currency being used to indicate each
  amount.
• An initial solution could be to create an
  aggregate data element (e.g. monetaryamount) with
  two sub-elements (e.g. amount, currency) being
  the latter the identifier of the currency being
  used. The identifier for the currency must follow
  a widely used standard. An initial approach may
  be to use ISO 42172001. Codes for the
  representation of currencies and funds.

104
Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 10.-Recommendations
• 10.6 Recommendation 6.- Measurement-type values
• The need
• The SIF Data Model makes no reference to the
  possibility of using objects whose value
  represents measurements in an environment where
  several measurement formats are used (e.g.
  kilometres and miles).

105
Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 10.-Recommendations
• 10.6 Recommendation 6.- Measurement-type values
• Action
• To extend those data objects to allow the
  specification of the particular measurement type
  being used (e.g. miles, feet, pounds, kilometres,
  kilos).
• An initial approach, is to create an aggregate
  data element (e.g. measurement) with two
  sub-elements (e.g. amount, unit). The identifier
  for the measurement must follow a widely used
  standard. An initial approach may be to use ISO
  311992, Quantities and Units. Part 0 General
  Principles, Units and Symbols. Part 1 Space and
  time.

106
Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 10.-Recommendations
• 10.7 Recommendation 7.- Internationalisation of
  Vocabularies
• The need
• Many SIF data elements use vocabularies defined
  by the SIF specification or externally defined in
  two sets of codes. These codes are composed of an
  abbreviation and a textual description of its
  meaning in the English language.

107
Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 10.-Recommendations
• 10.7 Recommendation 7.- Internationalisation of
  Vocabularies
• Action
• To translate descriptions into other languages.
  This action may be taken by the own SIF community
  following a gradual translation process.
  Translations should be carried out in the short
  term for those languages more widely spoken
  worldwide. An alternative to this option may be
  to put this responsibility on each SIF-based
  initiative.

108
Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 10.-Recommendations
• 10.8 Recommendation 8.- Proposals for
  Vocabularies
• The need
• Many SIF vocabularies may provide a set of values
  that are not suitable or do not cover completely
  the specific scope out of a US school
  environment.

109
Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 10.-Recommendations
• 10.8 Recommendation 8.- Proposals for
  Vocabularies
• Action
• To extend/modify vocabularies for each particular
  cultural/educational setting.

110
Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 10.-Recommendations
• 10.9 Recommendation 9.- Harmonization of Personal
  Information
• The need
• The main information involved in message exchange
  is related to student management data and
  administration services.
• Most SIF objects contains elements with personal
  data.

111
Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 10.-Recommendations
• 10.9 Recommendation 9.- Harmonization of Personal
  Information
• Action
• To harmonise personal data information included
  in SIF specification using any of the following
  standards/specifications IMS LIP (Learner
  Information Package), PAPI (Public And Private
  Information Learner) or vCard.

112
Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 10.-Recommendations
• 10.10 Recommendation 10.- Harmonization of
  Vocabularies
• The need
• Many SIF data elements use vocabularies, defined
  by the SIF specification or externally defined in
  two sets of codes. The space value covered by
  this vocabularies may have been previously
  defined in other existing initiatives.

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Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• 10.-Recommendations
• 10.10 Recommendation 10.- Harmonization of
  Vocabularies
• Action
• To take into account existing initiatives to
  develop taxonomies and vocabularies for the
  educational domain within their context.
• In Europe there exist several well-known
  providers of educational vocabularies in its
  wider sense (e.g. ETB (European Treasury Browser)
  9 or CEDEFOP (European Centre for the
  Development of Vocational Training)10).

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Internationalization of SIF and harmonisation
with other specs/standards

• Any comment on this CWA?
• May it become final after the review on the SIF
  data model, vCalendar and an overall update by
  the PT?

115
Next Steps (i)

• 1.- Develop the final versions for
• 1.a.- Report/CWA on SIF Infrastructure,
  Architecture, Message Processing and Transpor
  Layer
• 1.b.- CWA on Internationalisation of SIF and
  harmonisation with other specs/standards

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116
Next Steps (ii)

• 2.- Develop the draft versions for the CWA
  Adaptation of SIF Data Model for a European
  context

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117
Next Steps (iii)

• Integrate feedback from OASIS WP2 into the final
  deliverables

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118
Thanks
CEN/ISSS Workshop on Learning Technologies, 10-11
December 2002, Copenhagen, Denmark

• http//www.gist.uvigo.es/lanido/interop/
• Luis Anido-Rifon
• lanido_at_det.uvigo.es
• Niall Sclater
• n.sclater_at_strath.ac.uk
• www.sclater.com

Interoperability frameworks for exchange of
information between diverse management systems