Via: UK.AC.EARN-RELAY; Fri, 6 Mar 92 4:45 GMT Received: from UKACRL by UK.AC.RL.IB (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 9115; Fri, 06 Mar 92 03:28:57 GMT Received: from UICVM by UKACRL.BITNET (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 8965; Fri, 06 Mar 92 03:28:55 GM Received: by UICVM (Mailer R2.07) id 4449; Thu, 05 Mar 92 21:26:57 CST Date: Thu, 5 Mar 1992 15:50:04 CST Reply-To: "TEISteer: Text Encoding Initiative Steering Committee List" < TEISTEER@EARN.UICVM>, "C. M. Sperberg-McQueen" Sender: "TEISteer: Text Encoding Initiative Steering Committee List" < TEISTEER@EARN.UICVM> From: "C. M. Sperberg-McQueen" Subject: minutes from New Brunswick To: Lou Burnard Herewith a screen-readable version of the minutes; a P2X-tagged version is available upon request. -CMSMcQ --------- SC M22 Minutes Of the Steering Committee Meeting 2-3 March 1992 C. M. Sperberg-McQueen TEI SCM22 March 5, 1992 (15:11:00) 3 March 1992 Draft March 5, 1992 (15:11:00) Present: Robert Amsler (RA), Lou Burnard (LB), Susan Hockey (SH), Nancy Ide (NI), C. M. Sperberg-McQueen (MSM), Don Walker (DW). Absent: Antonio Zampolli (AZ). 1 APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE SH reported that AZ was unable to attend owing to a pressing meeting with the C.N.R. in Rome. 2 MINUTES Documents SC M19 (minutes from Oxford, September 1991), SC M20 (min- utes from Bergen), and SC M21 (notes on informal discussions in Las Cruces) were all approved as circulated. 3 MATTERS ARISING None. 4 SCHEDULE FOR COMPLETION OF P2 Editors' report on Current Status The editors disclaimed the ability to make precise estimates of the time required to complete individual chapters of P2, on the grounds that their previous estimates have all proven grievously wrong. Requested nevertheless to provide their best guesses, they described the current state of P2 and estimated the time required to complete its individual chapters as follows: Front matter * Summary - 2 days * Summary of Changes in Version 2 - 2 days Part I: Introduction - overall perhaps 10 days 11 About These Guidelines - 2 days 12 Concise Summary of SGML - 5 days 13 Structure of the TEI Document Type Declarations - 3 days Part II: Core Tags and General Rules - overall perhaps 15 days 21 Character Representation and Character Sets - 1 day 22 The TEI Header - 2 days more (draft now available) 23 Tags Available in All TEI DTDs - 10 days Part III: Base Tag Sets - overall 20 to 40 days 31 Base Tag Set for Prose - report from group, not suitable 32 Base Tag Set for Verse - report from group, not suitable 33 Base Tag Set for Drama - report from group in ODD form 34 Base Tag Set for Transcriptions of Spoken Texts - draft done, with the WG 35 Base Tag Set for Letters and Memoranda - nothing in hand 36 Base Tag Set for Printed Dictionaries - several drafts 37 Base Tag Set for Lexical data - very little 38 Base Tag Set for Terminological Data - drafts from W 39 Base Tag Set for Language Corpora and Collections - work paper Part IV: Additional Tag Sets - overall 20 to 40 days 41 Simple Cross References - SJD, DD working on it 42 Hypermedia - SJD, DD are working on it but have not sent it in 43 Formulae and Tables - paper from Ellison 44 Analytic Tools - mass of material from TL 45 Applications of Analytic Tools 451 Literary Interpretation and Analysis - nothing really drafted 452 Linguistic Analysis - will build on massive materials pro- vided by TL and AI 1. 46 Physical Characteristics of the Copy Text - nothing in hand beyond what is in P1 and suggestions from Syd Bauman of the Women Writers Project 47 Text Criticism and Apparatus - draft from WG in hand Part V: Auxiliary Document Types - overall perhaps 10 days 51 Structured Header - this is the TEI header interpreted as an independent document 52 Writing System Declaration - from P1 chapter 3, with revi- sions 53 Feature Structure Declaration - from a working paper by Gary Simons 54 Tag Set Declaration - from the ODD tag set developed by the editors Part VI: Technical Topics - overall perhaps 10 days 61 TEI Conformance - based on ML W43 62 Modifying TEI DTDs - nothing in hand, but the material is well understood 63 Local Installation and Support of TEI Markup - nothing in hand, may turn out very short 64 Use of TEI Encoding Scheme in Interchange - some material here can come from ML W43, some will be new Part VII: Alphabetical Reference List of Tags and Attributes - no separate time required, will follow mechanically from preparation of drafts Part VIII: Reference Material - overall perhaps 10 days 81 Full TEI Document Type Declarations - will follow mechanical- ly from drafts 82 Standard Writing System Declarations - drafts from Harry Gay- lord in hand 83 Feature Structure Declaration for Basic Grammatical Annota- tion - draft from Gary Simons in hand (?) 84 Sample Tag Set Declaration - will use an extract from section VII with commentary 85 Formal Grammar for the TEI-Interchange Format Subset of SGML - draft in hand Back matter - no separate time estimate SH asked what the editors have been doing to prepare TEI P2 in the three months that have elapsed since the Norway meetings. MSM said that routine administrative duties (budget and performance reports for NEH, dealing with routine inquiries, etc.) have prevented him from spending more than about half his TEI time on P2; slightly more than half of the time he has been able to spend on P2 has gone to development of ODD and P2X DTDs, clarifying how they should be used, and developing software to process and format them. SH asked whether, knowing what they now know, the editors would still choose to develop the new ODD tag set for P2, instead of working with some other (existing) tag set. MSM said the answer was definitely yes, as the ODD system will provide a much more solid base for future work and will enable much quicker revisions for P3 than any other tag set now known to the editors. The editors conferred privately on the total time required to com- plete P2 for public distribution, concluding that about ten days will be needed for each of sections I, II, V, VI, and VIII, and 20-40 days for sections II and III. This comes to between 90 and 120 editor days for P2; the elapsed time will be 4 to 6 months, since each editor works half time not full time. While the editors had been conferring, the rest of the committee had discussed the timetable: AB meeting, technical review, date we should announce publicly for the expected availability of P2, and what happens between P2 and P3. The Advisory Board meeting could be kept on current date and treated as a preliminary review, or else deferred to September. If P2 will be completed in five months, that will make it the end of July. DW favored keeping the AB meeting on the same dates, and treating it as part of the technical review needed for P2. NI was skeptical that the AB members would be in a position to perform a technical review: they need to distribute P2 to competent members of their organizations. DW proposed asking AB members to give us names of members in their organizations to whom P2 should be sent for review, with their comments to come back to AB member and to editors. Though P2 may not be ready until July, LB felt enough of P2 could be ready to make it worth the while to review it in the AB meeting. What- ever the AB was to review would have to be distributed by about 15 May. MSM asked what the program of an AB meeting on 30-31 May would be, sug- gesting it could be both a useful technical review for P2 and also a useful introduction to P2 for the AB. NI presented the case for delaying the AB meeting until September: in September, P2 would be ready, and the AB would have time to review and comment on it. MSM observed that even if AB met in May, we would need either a second meeting for endorsement or a fairly form mail bal- lot. RA asked about the requirements for a useful AB meeting. Parts I, II, and III must all be ready, he suggested, or else some AB members will object that they cannot endorse the draft because the particular tag set they are interested in is not yet finished. Four possible plans were defined: 1. meeting both in May and in the fall 2. meeting only in the fall for final endorsement 3. meeting in the fall for review and endorsement 4. meeting in May with postal ballot in the fall, NI noted that the idea that I, II, III, and IV could be ready by 15 May relies on the optimistic rather than the pessimistic estimates of how long chapters will take. All agreed that we should try to avoid curtailing consultation with the work groups in order to save time. NI and RA pointed out that the AB had not been involved in detailed techni- cal work thus far, suggesting that they may find it hard to deal useful- ly with unpolished drafts of P2. DW noted that some members of the AB are in fact technically sophis- ticated; if we can involve the AB in preparing P2, we can hope that they will actively defend P2 to their membership. MSM and LB concurred, arguing that a technical discussion with the AB will be very useful in proselytizing with the AB. LB felt, however, that to prepare a workshop and tutorial at the required level of technical information for May would be an insuperable task for the editors. NI and SH felt that the advisory board members' main task being to serve as liaison between their organizations and the TEI, we could have little hope of useful technical interaction with them. SH noted that if we view the AB as an external body, we must be sure to have our own house fully in order before talking with them. SH asked whether the editors could use help in developing, complet- ing, or revising the software for ODD processing, in the drafting, in preparing the diagrams and charts, or in the stylistic editing. The editors did not have good ideas for this. NI suggested that a third party could document the ODD system, so that work groups could produce ODDs instead of their current untagged documents. No decisions were taken. MSM and LB suggested that one way to help complete the guidelines would be to offload work other than P2 from the editors, but were again unable to name specifics. SH asked exactly what the editors did, in mechanical terms; MSM and LB described what exactly they had done on the dictionary and spoken-text sections: adding ODD tags to the draft, drafting tag documentation crystals, and revising for style and content. Adding the ODD tags and drafting the documentation crystals is relative- ly simple and mechanical and could be done by others, but the work groups have not been responsive enough to make the editors sanguine about getting them to help. SH summarized: we need to set a realistic deadline, and we must def- initely keep to it. If the SC sets a new deadline, the editors must undertake to keep to it absolutely, even if it means abandoning some portion of their ODD system. A proposal was mooted to hold a technical review meeting on 30-31 May, to which the AB would be invited to attend or to send a technical representative. This would effectively combine having a technical review meeting with the original plan of having an AB meeting. RA asked whether the participation of AB technical representatives would be on their own behalf or as representatives of their organizations. DW suggested considering who should attend the review meeting: if we decide who should ideally be there and that number is small, then we can ask AB members to send representatives without making the meeting too ungainly. SH asked what we would achieve by having the AB present -- indeed, what we are hoping to achieve in the technical review. Are we trying to solve remaining problems? Are we trying to generate new ideas? Can we contain the flow of new ideas successfully enough to allow the Guidelines to stabilize? MSM and DW suggested that a techni- cal review meeting would make it possible for representatives of the WGs and WCs to see the context within which changes had been made to their drafts, to approve or object, and to evaluate the presentation form of the Guidelines as a whole -- not just the section they had been respon- sible for. RA pointed out that the technical review meeting could be very sig- nificant for an organization attempting to decide whether to endorse the Guidelines. LB observed that this meant effectively separating out the two functions we had hoped for from the AB: technical review at one meeting, and endorsement at a second. Three types of people might come to the May meeting: people who have been working on the TEI, outside experts on SGML and software, and mem- bers of the AB or their representatives. Names suggested for the first group included: * Elli Mylonas * David Barnard * Gary Simons * Terry Langendoen * Stig Johansson * Steve DeRose * Harry Gaylord * Cencioni * Dan Greenstein * Nicoletta Calzolari * David Durand? * Robert Ingria (?) * Jan Hajic''? * Elaine Brennan? * Rich Giordano? * Peter Robinson? * Claus Huitfeldt? Names suggested for the second group included: * Martin Bryan * Yuri Rubinsky * Franc,,ois Chahuneau * Charles Goldfarb * Yaacov Choueka * Eric van Herwijnen * John McFadden (?) * Jean-Pierre Gaspart SH suggested that we need representation from humanists with some knowledge of SGML who can ensure that the TEI addresses their issues. NI and MSM felt that this group might not have the proficiency to help the meeting ensure the technical integrity of P2. MSM urged that a review of the utility of TEI for end users await completion of TEI U1 and TEI T1 (the tutorial and the casebook); the meeting was to check the technical integrity of the guidelines, not their usability. SH asked whether, in that case, the outside SGML experts did not similarly change the purpose of the meeting. She suggested omitting both the SGML experts and the users; MSM agreed. After discussion, LB suggested we might need two technical reviews: one in May with a subset of Vatnahalsen attendees, some affiliated projects, and whomever the AB sends; one later, with again a subset of those who went to Norway, ML, and outside SGML experts, mostly to review Parts IV through VIII. It was agreed to hold the May meeting as a technical review meeting rather than an AB meeting, inviting a subset of the Myrdal attendees and inviting the AB to attend or send a representative (expenses paid up to $500 for North Americans, $1000 for Europeans). From Norway, invite Simons, Mylonas, Langendoen, Johansson, Barnard, DeRose, Greenstein, Gaylord, Cencioni, Huitfeldt, Robinson, Giordano; others may also possi- bly be invited. No decision was made as to the second technical review suggested by LB. By 15 May, all of I, II, III, and IV must be completed and distribut- ed. The editors agreed to this explicitly. The AB meeting should be rescheduled for the fall; MSM asked whether it would make sense to delay it to the winter or even the spring, in order to give more time for review, and to ensure that some tutorial and case-book material would be available. DW felt that delaying past the fall would be a political liability. It was agreed to hold the AB meet- ing in the fall, and the following timetable was sketched out and agreed to in its broad outlines: 15 May: P2 Parts I-IV to tech review attendees 30-31 May: Technical Review Meeting, Chicago 15 July: P2 complete, goes to printers 31 July: P2 back from printers 1 Sept: revisions for P3 begin 15 Sept: comment period ends 30 Sept: text is locked, final printing begins 15 Oct: P3 to printers 31 Oct: P3 back from printers, mail to AB, together with tutorial(s) and case book(s) in whatever form they exist at this point 14-15 Nov: Advisory Board meeting It was agreed that SH will discuss this draft schedule with AZ and then publicize on TEI-L. SH to discuss draft schedule with AZ and publicize draft schedule on TEI-L Due: asap Document number: TEI J 23 5 ALLC/ACH 92 CONFERENCE SC Meeting and Technical Review The SC will meet, and an evening session on the TEI is now on the conference program. Since the 10-11 April will not now be used for the technical review meeting, the SC meeting can take place Friday and Sat- urday, 10 and 11 April, in Oxford. TEI Evening Session This will not now be an overall technical presentation of TEI P2 with a last-chance opportunity for comment on P1. It was agreed to use it for a presentation of some of the more humanities-oriented material, e.g. drama and verse. SH suggested that the session should be aimed at demonstrating that the TEI tag set can in fact be used in normal humani- ties computing work. The committee named David Chisholm (discussing his work on stylostatistics of poetry), Elli Mylonas (on the encoding of drama), Elaine Brennan (on the WWP's use of TEI tagging for scholarly and student editions), Andrea de Leeuw van Weenen (on the Armenian Data Base), and Rich Giordano (on the Stockholm-Umeå Corpus) as possi- ble presenters. LB suggested that the Japanese be invited to give talks in the main program; this would require getting a proposal from them and getting it approved by the program committee. SH and MSM thought it would be sim- pler to give them time in the evening session, which might also give them more exposure. SH pointed out that Syun Tutiya had in fact requested time on the evening program, not a talk in the main program. On SH's suggestion it was agreed that after ten minutes of introduc- tion (SH), the session would continue with four fifteen-minute talks from Mylonas, Chisholm, Brennan, and Giordano; SH will contact Makato Nagao to ask him to arrange for twenty minutes of discussion of Japanese concerns regarding character sets and Japanese-language issues, specific humanities applications in Japan, and if possible some statement of Jap- anese national commitment to the TEI; this can be followed by ten min- utes or so on the future of the TEI itself (SH). SH will write the speakers asking whether they have gotten external support for their travel; we will pay their travel if they don't have support. If Giordano cannot speak, SH will ask Andrea de Leeuw van Weenen; failing that, Don Spaeth or Dan Greenstein. 6 PUBLICATION AND DISSEMINATION OF P2 AND P3 This topic was taken up proleptically at the end of Monday. DW observed that with the calendar changes, P3 may have lost its air of finality. Publication of the tutorials and casebook materials will lag substantially behind P3; P3 itself may be changing more than we expect- ed. And wide dissemination of the tutorials and casebook may motivate some changes to P3. Certainly by pushing P3 further into the future we have made it less essential to decide here on the method of publication for P3. NI asked whether P4 would replace or supplement P3. MSM suggested that a series of supplemental documents would be preferable to full replacement by a new document every year or so; RA was skeptical. NI asked DW what alternatives he saw to commercial publication; he named distribution by the associations in electronic and paper form. These could be uncoupled, with a commercial publisher receiving and pub- lishing a snapshot of the electronic form at one time. RA suggested following the AAP's method: they have created an ANSI standard, but still are the primary source for buying it. SH pointed out that commer- cial publishers would give us access to a public beyond the one we can reach ourselves. LB asked that someone take steps to acquire an ISBN for TEI P2. No action was assigned. NI asked about the relationship between the printing of P3 for the Advisory Board in October and the printing which might be done by a com- mercial publisher; would the commercial publisher simply be reprinting what we had given the AB? MSM said the copy text given to the publisher should agree in substance with that sent to the AB, but expected a com- mercial publisher to redesign the book, possibly for a different format. DW saw no compelling need for redesign, but the editors expressed a firm desire for professional design for any formal publication of P3, and (funding permitting) even for the internal distribution to the Advisory Board. 7 CONSULTATION WITH AZ SH reported that in a telephone conversation Tuesday morning, AZ had agreed to rescheduling the AB meeting for after P2 is completed. 8 REVIEW OF BUDGET MSM reviewed the central budget figures. Under the NEH grant, $409,933: was budgeted for cycle 2 176,000: has been sent 233,000: remains unspent 134,000: of the $233,000 is committed for further salaries, etc. 100,000: remains to be spent or committed For the Mellon funds, $100,000: was granted to us 41,000: has been spent ca. 50,000: has been lent to the EEC account to pay European travel ca. 10,000: of the original principal remains unspent and unloaned ca. 5,000: has been earned in interest Under the 1990-91 EEC contract, 33,000 ECU: was allocated to travel paid through ACH 33,000 ECU: was spent on travel 6,000 ECU: has been received from Pisa 27,000 ECU: remains to be paid from Pisa Under the 1991-92 EEC contract (18 months), 40,000 ECU: was allocated to Oxford 20,000: was allocated to Oslo 10,000: was allocated to dissemination activities 70,000: was allocated to travel paid through ACH 60,000: was allocated to administration and to non-TEI activities 12,500: has been spent on travel 0: has been spent on dissemination 0: has been received MSM noted that the period for claiming matching funds from NEH is fast expiring; he was asked to request an extension. MSM to write NEH requesting extension on matching fund period Due: asap Working from the figures given above, the committee calculated the funds remaining and available for reallocation as follows: $100,000: from NEH 60,000: from Mellon 72,500: from EEC travel funds (58,000 ECU) 12,500: from EEC dissemination funds (10,000 ECU) $245,000: total available The SC authorized payment of travel by representatives of the Vassar/ CNRS project to the recent ad hoc meeting in Washington to discuss the dictionary chapter, to be carried under the affiliated projects line. 9 FUTURE OF THE TEI SH suggested that the current mode of operation should be continued at least until P2 and P3 are complete. With the disposable money from Mellon and NEH, we have about $160,000. If we agree to pay the salaries at UIC for another year, that will cost $70,000 or so. Expected minimum costs (to NEH and Mellon funds) of continuing the editorial and secretarial work as at present were estimated as follows: review meeting: $10,000 from NEH funds AB meeting: $16,000 from NEH funds UIC salaries: $72,000 from NEH funds travel to Oxford: $12,000 Printing costs etc. can come from EEC dissemination funds. Based on these figures, the committee concluded that the TEI can con- tinue at least a minimal U.S. operation for another year, and need not disband on 1 July 1992, even if no further funding is forthcoming. The committee then turned to document SC W3, a sketch of plans for the future of the TEI prepared by SH and DW. SH noted that the budget in SC W3, section A.2 assumes an even responsibility for costs between the U.S. and Europe. AZ has objected that too much has been allocated to European costs, and SH agreed that the calculation in the text was not correct: instead of splitting the total cost ($255,000) 2:1 US:Europe, we should split the non-salary cost 2:1, which makes the European contribution $25,000 + 1/3 * $155,000 = $77,000 instead of $85,000. NI asked whether coordination with the Japanese would really cost $25,000; SH and DW explained that this amount was intended to cover costs of travel for negotiating agreements with the Japanese. Attempt- ing to estimate conservatively, we may expect two negotiating meetings with as many as four travelers, at a cost of $3000. NI asked why the work group line was present, since most WG members expect their WGs to be disbanded at the end of the second cycle. DW suggested that we first need to discuss the preamble of the paper. RA pointed out that the activities listed were all independent of the activity of completing P2 and P3, and might have an effect on the sched- ule. He also felt that more discussion was needed on what activities should be continued and what new activities should be engaged in. DW noted that (judging from conversations with Cencioni in Pisa) the EEC views the continuation of work and continued expansion to new areas as an essential component of the continuation of the TEI. After a break, the committee proceed to a systematic discussion of SC W3, beginning at the beginning. RA asked first whom SC W3 was addressed to; in the first instance, said DW and SH, SC W3 is intended as an internal discussion paper for the SC, but it or a later version of it can also serve for informal distribution to Charles Wayne and similar officials at NSF and DARPA, who like to begin discussions on the basis of short quick overviews. DW described briefly the regular programs and discretionary funding sources from which we may hope to receive some money. MSM suggested that the dates of the transitional period might depend on when we would be able to prepare a proposal for the major funding required for the long-term project described in SC W3. The long-term grant proposal would require perhaps two months of discussion after the completion of P3; it was agreed that the proposal for major funding for the long-term project should thus be ready by January or February 1993. DW disagreed, arguing that even with the reorganizational issues the long-term proposal should not take so long; he hoped that a fundamental consensus on the long-term organization could be achieved this spring; if so, preparation of the long-term proposal should take less time and it could be ready as early as December. DW noted that AZ had suggested using the term transition rather than interim. AZ has argued that we must have a strong research component, but DW feels we cannot perform serious research within the funding lim- its we face; we must attempt to coopt other research and coordinate work by others. At RA's request, DW expanded the acronyms in paragraph 1: National Research and Education Network, Coalition for Networked Information, High-Performance Computer and Communications program, Center for Elec- tronic Texts in the Humanities, Network of European Reference Corpora. LB and NI felt that too many of these were pie-in-the-sky operations, with whom we do not wish to be associated in the minds of funders; it was agreed to word this passage carefully. DW noted that further sponsoring organizations might be added; MSM registered skepticism at adding further organizations, unless perhaps by adding a Japanese organization. DW and SH observed that ALLC and ACL have strong Japanese membership. LB expressed grave skepticism at the notion of an executive director ranking higher than the two area coordinators; he felt the three direc- tors could better function as a troika of equals. DW suggested that establishing a more serious central administrative office could be moti- vated by an attempt to reduce the immediate administrative role of the steering committee; an organization needs one person responsible for the administrative details. LB felt that the three directors should share responsibility and function as a collective. Three alternative models were defined: executive director plus two area coordinators, three equal area coordinators, three coordinators plus a central secretariat. DW argued forcefully that the executive director must serve full time, in order to pursue and cultivate rela- tionships with other organizations inter alia; this would eliminate the problems encountered by the two current editors, whose non-TEI commit- ments continually hamper their TEI activities. NI suggested listing the duties that need performing, in order to clarify better how to allocate them to different positions. RA suggest- ed that a treasurer's position needs to be created. SH suggested that in her model, the executive director would circulate to the SC before each meeting a plan of work for the next few months, with an estimate of expenditure associated with the work. LB argued that any such plan of work must emerge as the consensus of the three coordinators, rather than as a decision of an executive director who might be overruling the opin- ions of the other two coordinators. DW agreed that the work must be performed consensually to the extent possible and argued that the executive director was required simply in order to ensure that one position existed whose incumbent had no obliga- tions beyond the TEI, so that the large amounts of non-policy adminis- trative functions can be dealt with more effectively than they have been so far. Discussion established that revision should clarify the functions of the coordinators, especially the executive director. DW suggested defining the three directors (coordinators) as more nearly equal, with one identified as responsible for budgetary and secretarial matters and for providing a channel of communication with the SC; this director to be working full time for the TEI. LB felt that the role of general sec- retary should not be confused with that of the directors; DW insisted that at least one of the directors must be full time for the TEI. LB felt that if one director were full-time and the others not, the three would no longer be equal. This was unacceptable to him. SH noted that the annual budget for this proposal would be in the neighborhood of $600,000; funding agencies would require strict account- ability for the expenditures and procedures for managing the budget and accounting for it. DW reported that AZ felt further discussion was needed of the compo- sition of the SC. DW described the possible replacement of RA with M. Nagao as motivat- ed by a desire for better balance; similarly, if the directors/ coordinators become ex officio members of the steering committee, MSM would need to be replaced as an ACH representative; here too geographic considerations would suggest finding a European to replace him if possi- ble. RA felt that this was discussable, but observed that he was the only member of the steering committee with regular access to the classified community and to government activities. NI observed that though ACH has a number of European members, none is very active in the organization as officers and so none is very likely as a replacement for MSM. The ACH representatives will discuss this in camera. DW felt that whatever happened, geographic diversity must be achieved. RA and MSM suggested that it might be simpler to expand the steering committee, either by adding formal representation for geograph- ic areas (RA) or by adding a fourth sponsoring organization (MSM). DW summarized: we can expand the size of the SC retaining the three organ- izations, or add a Japanese-based organization; neither of these possi- bilities adequately addresses the need for regional balance also between Europe and North America. The offices of the directors could be independent, or embedded in other institutions, preferably in one with symbiotic interests; this would presumably be less expensive than running an independent office (since the cost of an independent office is approximately 100% or more of the salary costs, rather than 38% etc.). MSM asked whether the per- sonnel decisions or the choice of host institution needs to be primary; DW felt it could go either way. LB stressed that the same considera- tions should apply to the area coordinators, not only to the executive director. NI urged that the description of non-centralized activities be expanded dramatically; this is central to the further intellectual work of the project. MSM asked that the committee clarify how we expect the non-centralized work on and with the TEI to function. NI noted that any project could apply to NEH and NSF for funds, with use of the TEI Guide- lines as part of their proposal, possibly also with the formulation of extensions of the Guidelines as part of the proposal. NEH and NSF are willing to fund extension projects; we need to formulate policy on how we will interact with people interested in the extensions. RA was con- cerned by the case where people using TEI Guidelines replaced them with their own formulations; if the TEI does not have good methods of incor- porating work done by others, the Guidelines will be replaced in many specialized applications by non-standard extensions or non-conforming markup schemes invented specifically for those applications. MSM suggested that we need to find funding for centrally provided consulting for projects making large TEI-conformant texts; NI and LB concurred. LB added that we should also be prepared to accept proposals for changes to the guidelines out of such projects, or even out of projects set up specifically to create such extensions. MSM suggested that three possible routes to drafts should be distinguished: develop- ment by TEI-initiated work groups, development by TEI-coopted work groups which began elsewhere (as did DEI and the AHC working group, i.e. AI 4), or submission to the TEI as completely developed drafts. RA felt that this view laid excessive stress on centralized development. MSM proposed that the program of work, at least for the long term, include lines for "consulting services offered to data collection projects" "support for and cooptation of externally initiated work groups" DW asked whether the TEI could in fact dissolve itself in 1996 or so; RA rephrased the question by asking what the termination conditions of the TEI would be. He suggested that acceptance as an ISO standard would constitute such a termination condition. MSM argued that since ISO and ANSI rely mostly on commercial and government funding of their work groups, the TEI would have to continue to exist even if the Guidelines were adopted as an ISO standard, since the TEI would be necessary to ensure that the academic research community (a large part of our con- stituency) was able to influence the periodic ISO revisions. MSM felt that the only termination condition for the TEI would be its failure: when the Guidelines are not in use there is no point in further revi- sion. As long as they are in use, they will need periodic revision and extension. Even if in 1996 the TEI moves into a maintenance phase, the TEI as an organizational structure will simply need much less funding; it will not be able to dissolve. SH pointed out that it was important not to give funding agencies the idea that we will continue requiring funding forever. DW liked the notion of defining a minimal ongoing structure but felt we should avoid having to justify a specific program of work as the final one. (?) LB argued that progressing the TEI through to standards status is important, and reminded the group that on AZ's account, no termination date has been mentioned to DG XIII, and even the notion of terminating is hazy. The program of activities for the transitional project (SC W3 section A.1) was discussed next; DW suggested voting each topic up or down, add- ing further topics, and then soliciting suggestions for how to implement them. Topics 1 and 2 (work on documents Pn, Un, Tn, etc.) were approved. Topic 3 (evaluation and usability) was discussed at some length; its content was unclear to some. DW proposed that this activity would allow us to argue convincingly, with some sort of data, that the TEI's products are useful. LB felt that evaluation should be performed by others, not by the TEI; MSM felt in contrast that the TEI must con- cern itself with the evaluation of the Guidelines; not to do so would be to act irresponsibly with the funding we've been given. It was agreed that this topic needs to be further specified. Education and dissemina- tion were approved. SH hoped that the software evaluation of point 5 would be a report on what is available and how it measures up to the TEI requirements. MSM asked that someone volunteer to consider how this software evaluation could be performed and report in April. NI report on methods of software evaluation Due: April meeting Document number: SC W4 To the list of continuing work groups were added: dictionaries and metalanguage / standardization activities. As a new work area, LB sug- gested preparing recommendations for document generation and cooperative work. DW argued that we must undertake at least some work on informa- tion retrieval and access. LB and MSM suggested that 7b and 7c could better be handled as demonstration projects showing potential applica- tions of the TEI to important application areas. Science and engineer- ing are important, DW said, if only because the EEC has so much interest in them. RA suggested adding video-plus-speech indexing and still images plus captions. MSM suggested renaming 7 as "demonstration projects" Item 8 (encouraging the production of TEI-tagged texts) was approved. The committee did not agree whether item 9 (validation of TEI confor- mance) should form part of the long-term program; if it does, then first steps toward providing such a service could be taken during the tran- sitional period. RA suggested adding the provision of style sheets (guidance for printing TEI files) as an item between 9 and 10; this was not agreed. Item 10 (liaison) was agreed to. SH asked whether we needed to allocate funds for further work at Ari- zona and Queens. SH recalled that TL estimated the cost of a graduate student at ca. $9000/year, and had enough money to continue to the end of this summer. She asked whether the ML committee needed to continue; the editors felt that it should, and placed on the record their strong endorsement of the work of this committee. It was agreed that if funds are available, TL should be supported through the 1992-93 academic year; RA felt that perhaps funds should be directed to computational linguistics rather than to general linguis- tics, saying that some computational linguists found the work product of AI1 to be unusable. MSM considered this to rest on failure to apply the work intelligently. 10 PUBLICATION AND DISSEMINATION OF P2/3 This topic had been discussed briefly on the preceding day; further discussion was postponed until April. 11 ANY OTHER BUSINESS There was none. 12 DATES OF NEXT SC MEETINGS The next meeting is 10-11 April 1992 in Oxford. LB will reserve rooms. The meeting adjourned at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday 3 March 1992. Draft March 5, 1992 (15:11:00)