Minutes of the TEI Steering Committee Meeting Aix-en-Provence, 20-21 February 1993 C. M. Sperberg-McQueen Document TEI SC M29 2 March 1993 Draft March 2, 1993 (13:41:19) The meeting convened at 9:35 a.m. Saturday 20 February 1993. SH reviewed the plans for working hours, meals, departures, and the hotel bill. 1 APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE Present were: * Lou Burnard (LB) * Susan Hockey (SH) * Nancy Ide (NI) * C. M. Sperberg-McQueen (MSM) * Donald Walker (DW) * Antonio Zampolli (AZ) Robert Amsler (RA) was not present at the meeting. 2 MINUTES OF THE LAST MEETING (SC M28) The minutes (TEI SC M28) were approved as distributed. 3 MATTERS ARISING FROM THE MINUTES 3.1 Items Carried Over Items carried over from meetings prior to the last one: 1. SH must delay acquisition of a publisher's prefix and ISBN for TEI P3 pending further resolution of organizational plans for the TEI's future. 2. MSM has neither distributed the three-year budget to SC nor sub- mitted it to NEH. 3. SH has made no progress on the draft generic TEI tutorial. 4. the work on dictionary draft (NI and RA, two items) has been taken care of in other ways 5. SH has had a brief discussion with Dan Greenstein about Modelling Historical Data and asked him whether he could produce list of new papers; he has since returned to Glasgow and she has not heard from him. The actions not performed were carried forward again: ACTION: SH to handle the acquisition of an ISBN for the TEI Guidelines Due: as appropriate ACTION: MSM to create three-year budget for second cycle, distribute to SC, and submit to NEH Due: asap Document number: TEI B19 ACTION: SH to draft generic tutorial on TEI encoding Due: when feasible Document number: TEI U1 3.2 Matters from November 1992 Action items from the SC meeting of November 1992 (SC M28): 1. MSM and WP have sent to DW and SH the list of documents sent to M. Nagao. 2. WP has sent to Syun Tutiya a duplicate of the packet of papers sent to M. Nagao. 3. DW, MSM, and SH have not agreed on what expense information is to be sent to Nagao and Tutiya, and no summary has been sent. 4. RA did ask AI5 for comment on AI5 D17; Fought and Van Ess-Dykema responded with a revision of D15. 5. There was no report on whether RA had asked Fought and Van Ess- Dykema to test draft AI5 D17; the action has since become irrele- vant in either case. 6. NI said that the task of encoding the Fought/Van Ess-Dykema exam- ples had been taken care of in other ways. 7. SH is awaiting Dan Greenstein's summary description of the revised Modelling Historical Data in order to be able to approach publish- ers. 8. MSM confirmed that he will be able to report on the accuracy of the budget estimates made in SC M28. 9. MSM has sent the terminology tutorial to SH. 10. MSM has written to Muriel Vasconcellos, suggesting that IAMT (International Association for Machine Translation) might be a better candidate for participation in the TEI than AMTA (American Machine Translation Association). The uncompleted actions were carried forward: ACTION: DW, SH, MSM to agree on what expense information should go to Nagao and Tutiya Due: asap ACTION: MSM to send expense summary information to Nagao and Tutiya Due: as soon as MSM, DW, SH have been able to agree on the pre- cise information to be provided ACTION: SH to take up discussions with publishers seeking a suitable press to handle a new edition of Modelling Historical Data, and report back to the SC (which reserves the right to choose the publisher); publishers approached should include at least: * Oxford UP * Cambridge UP * Kluwer Academic Publishers * Addison-Wesley * U of Chicago Press * Manchester UP Due: as appropriate (after Dan Greenstein produces summary) 4 SCHEDULE FOR COMPLETION OF P2 SH noted that several chapters which had been scheduled to appear by the current time have not been published and asked the editors to describe their status. ST: has posed technical challenges, since it defines the interface all the partial tag sets must use. The existing chapters will have to be revised retrospectively to meet the interface. Some problems of sequence of declarations have been solved. CC: has posed editorial problems regarding its position and contents. On AZ's request, the editors confirmed that the major problems relate to the organization of the material, not to the technical content. At AH's request, LB summarized the current contents of the draft, to make clear the problems which have caused the delay. AB: has been revised but not approved by SH and NI. MSM is handing the chapter over to LB. SH and NI will comment to LB; they feel it can be substantially abbreviated. DR: exists in a draft; the ODD format needs to be revised and returned to TR9 for reaction. SG: has been submitted by DB but not worked on by editors. TC: needs to be put into ODD format and go to TR2 for comment. AI: needs to be extracted from Terry Langendoen's draft for old chapter 44 and revised. FS: needs to be extracted from Terry Langendoen's draft for old chapter 44 and revised. VE: does not exist. Large portions of its material were included in chapter CO. DI: exists in draft (AI5 D17); MSM will work through it with AI5 over the next few weeks. The next chapters are: SH: (with LB) exists in a draft from Richard Giordano. LM: (with MSM) exists in a draft from Dan Greenstein. PH: (with PH) has not materialized; TR9 has not produced a draft. The editors are contemplating the possibility that the chapter will not appear in P2. AH: (with MSM) has been worked over again by LB in connection with CC. FD: (with MSM) exists in a draft by Gary Simons; MSM foresees no major problems. TD: (with LB) does not exist, but LB foresees no major problems. SH reflected on the order of chapters reflected in ED A23. Should we continue to put chapters early which raise technical and scientific problems, or try to get currently existing drafts out as quickly as pos- sible? MSM expressed the opinion that we should indeed try to smoke out the hard technical questions as soon as possible, and that the current sequence was well suited to this goal. At the same time, the editors recognize the critical importance of getting material out as quickly as possible and hoped to do so. SH asked MSM to resume the periodic reports on progress which he had been sending out in December (and early January?); MSM agreed. ACTION: editors to provide SC with regular progress reports on the status of the pending chapters. Due: periodically, beginning at once AZ asked when we would have a viable core set of chapters. MSM thought that the chapters in groups 1 through 3 (in ED A32) would be done in time for an Advisory Board meeting in May or June; LB thought that at least groups 1 and 2 would be ready by that time. MSM proposed referring to the minimal viable set of core chapters as the "Working Version" of TEI P2, and the full projected table of contents as the "Publication Version" of TEI P2. The committee adjourned for lunch at 11:30. 5 BUDGET: REPORT ON CURRENT STATUS The committee re-convened at 3:15. MSM reported on the budgets, cur- rent expenditures, and balance available for the three funding agencies: * NEH2. Budget $403,000; spent $295,600; committed and projected $108,500; available $-600. (Of this, some money may be recovered from the $28,000 still unclaimed on the Queens subcontract.) * Mellon. Budget $100,000; spent $57,200; no commitments; available $42,800. * EEC. Since the beginning of Cycle 2, Chicago has spent ECU 123,000 (71,000 travel, 52,000 to OUCS); has received ECU 104,000 (33,000 on contract 2, 27,000 in early summer, 44,000 in late summer). With committed travel, this means Chicago needs 26,000 ECU to cover expenses already incurred or committed. MSM was asked to renegotiate the Queens subcontract asap. ACTION: MSM to renegotiate the Queens subcontract Due: asap AZ reported that from now through approximately October 1994 we should have 83000 ECU. A discussion ensued on how to SH suggested spending off the Mellon fund as quickly as possible by using it to pay expenses otherwise slated for NEH; this was discussed, but no decision taken. The committee took a short break from 5:10 to 5:30. It was agreed: 1. to write a letter to OUCS assuring them that we will be able to continue support for LB, possibly at a lower rate, for the period from 1 July 1993 to 30 June 1994, specifying a minimum sum of ECU 30,000. 2. to use the unrestricted Mellon funds to pay as much as possible of the recent invoices from Oxford (17,000 ECU and 24,000 ECU). ACTION: SH to write Keith Moulden promising support for Lou in the minimum amount of 40,000 Due: asap, pending MSM's renewed confirmation of the amounts actually received from EEC Document number: ACTION: MSM, LK, WP to confirm amounts received from EEC Due: asap ACTION: MSM to pay OUCS from Mellon funds Due: asap ACTION: AZ to direct Pisa to send the 24000 ECU to MSM, not to OUCS. Due: immediately ACTION: SH to send AZ two letters requesting Pisa to send 24,000 to MSM for OUCS, and 26,000 for ACH expenses Due: asap ACTION: MSM to formulate closing accounts for Mellon funds Due: asap SH proposed that the committee decide exactly what to do with the remaining NEH funds. It appears all to be committed, but about $20,000 may be available for use. We will thus have about $60,000 of otherwise uncommitted funds. This topic led directly into the next items on the agenda. 4 bis PLAN FOR COMPLETION OF P2 (REVISITED) MSM proposed holding an AB meeting in June, and possibly a technical review meeting in May, to review the "Working Version" of TEI P2. DW agreed that we need to finish at least a core version of P2 by June. SH summarized the options: * spend the money: core P2 to go to AB in June * keep the money to try to keep Chicago office going, by further real- location and further extension of NEH. LB argued that an AB meeting was essential and a technical review meeting advisable, as soon as possible. AZ agreed that these were worthwhile, but asked whether they were worth more than several months of the Chicago office. MSM said they were indeed. SH reported that Helen Aguera had asked her to come give a brief presentation and tutorial on SGML and the TEI in March for a group of funding-agency officers; this may be an opportunity to broaden the interest of other agencies in the TEI. AZ felt that the Advisory Board meeting would be politically impor- tant, but not technically useful. The important question is whether it would be politically helpful or harmful. It was agreed to hold an Advisory Board meeting in June, and a Tech- nical Review meeting in April or May. AZ argued for at least two months' time between the meetings, MSM for about six weeks. SH asked what exactly we would be hoping to accomplish with the technical review meeting; DW voiced two goals: a review and polishing of the work done to date, and some consideration of serious work remaining to be done, notably substantial areas remaining to be addressed. The second func- tion will effectively set the scientific agenda for the future of the TEI (in part). AZ suggested with some vigor that all attendees should be requested to distribute their comments on the draft to all other attendees by some date, e.g. 20 days before the meeting. MSM felt that this would be a very helpful method of helping ensure that the meeting made good use of the time available. DW agreed, but pointed out that it was also useful to ask the attendees to comment on major opportunities for future devel- opment. LB suggested assigning individuals to act as rapporteurs. No formal decisions were made. SH asked the editors to have a schedule of work through June for the morning meeting. The meeting reconvened at 9:35 a.m., Sunday 21 February 1993. SH recapped the decisions of the preceding day: * to keep to the schedule in the current NEH grant * to hold the AB meeting in June * to use the $20,000 we hope to recover from Queens for a technical review meeting * to use the technical review meeting both for low-level review of P2 and for discussion of long-term scientific lines of work This leaves us with the task of deciding when to hold the meetings, how to prepare for them, and who will do the preparation. LB suggested 12-13 June for the AB, and 28-30 April for the technical review. The 12-13 would cause problems for AZ and for any representatives of the EEC. As an alternative, AZ suggested 28-29 June. NI had a conflict, but was willing to forego her other plans; DW will have difficulty mak- ing it, but will appear. It was agreed to hold the AB meeting in Chica- go on the afternoon of Monday 28 (starting with lunch) and all day on Tuesday 29 June, concluding about 4 p.m. SH and MSM suggested perhaps using the afternoon of the first day for a (tutorial) review of the Guidelines, adn the second for discussion; this was accepted as a tenta- tive plan. LB offered to do the local organization for the technical review meeting, and asked for a head count and budget. MSM proposed 20 people, at $125 (85 pounds) per day. LB felt reasonably confident that he could get a conference hotel for 100 pounds, but not 85; it was agreed to ask him to try to get something less expensive, but it was felt that we could probably afford the extra 15 pounds/day if we held the meeting in Oxford, since London and Oxford are reasonably cheap to get to. AZ estimated the total cost as 7000 pounds for housing and food (350 pounds for each attendee), and perhaps $16,000 for airfare (at $800). SH asked the editors how many chapters they hope to complete by the end of April; they reported that their current best estimate is that the chapters in groups 1, 2, and 3 of ED A23 ("Tentative Publication Dates for Fascicles of TEI P2") will be done by that time. SH noted that the invitations should be sent out soon for both meet- ings. ACTION: SH, DW, MSM to draft initial list of attendees for technical review meeting and distribute to SC Due: 24 February 1993 ACTION: SH, MSM, WP to draft invitations to attendees for both meetings and send them out Due: asap ACTION: MSM renegotiate the Queens contract, to ensure that we have the funds necessary to pay for the technical review meeting, and report to the SC Due: immediately DW noted that the current plan requires the editors to redefine the table of contents for P2, and stop sending the full draft table of con- tents. ACTION: editors revise P2 table of contents Due: immediately Document number: ED W23 It was agreed to hold a SC meeting on 16 May, in Oxford, to review the results of the technical review meeting. 6 EDITORS' REPORT ON OTHER ACTIVITIES MSM reported that in connection with work on chapter ST he had enhanced the DTD generation software to provide the facilities for ele- ment renaming postulated by committee ML and the sketches of chapter MD. With help from WP, and at AZ's request, he has also recently completed a combined version of all published chapters, which AZ has distributed to participants in EAGLES. MSM has given a copy of NI and will send copies to any SC members who wish one. They may wish to wait for the next merged version, which will include chapters which have been drafted in ODD form but not yet published. In early February, he gave a talk at DataLogics, an SGML vendor in Chicago, which led to discussion of their work on SGML-driven typography and a copy of the DIS for DSSSL, which he had been otherwise unable to acquire but which will be useful for work with the rend attribute and with chapter PH, when it appears. He has also been participating in discussions of the syntax of the DSSSL query language. He has had no other outside activities. LB reported that he has developed LaTeX macros and a fuller P2X-to-LaTeX translation dictionary for use with his generic translation filter; as a result, we will be able to provide LaTeX versions of P2 as promised. He attended a European HyTime Workshop in Paris in December. He has also been discussing things with people involved in the IMPACT (Information Market Policy Actions) program, and the OII (Open Informa- tion Interchange), which is an initiative within that program. He will be speaking at an SGML meeting in Amsterdam. Two projects at OUCS and one at the University of London have been asking him for an introductory tutorial for P2; he has declined but has generated a sim- plified DTD for them; this DTD will be used as the basis for SGML work in the Oxford Text Archive. 7 FUTURE OF THE TEI 7.1 Funding Proposal (TEI SC G14) SH asked AZ to comment on the current version of SC G14, and to describe any more general views he may wish to bring to the committee's attention. He noted: 1. "The TEI began ..." says that P2 will include a number of chapters we now expect not to appear in it. 2. "Many other groups ..." EAGLES wasd not organized just to provide TEI encoding 3. "It is clear ... " delete clause about European Community support. 4. AB meeting is no longer expected for early in transition period. 5. Phrasing about Technical Review meeting must be clearly phrased as a proposal, not as a commitment. 6. For budget, AZ calculates that the European portion will cost about $118,000 (ca. 97,000 ECU); we have almost this amount, but it ranges over a slightly longer period. Wording must not imply that the European funding is secured for all items. 7. In Conclusion, drop the word "pledge" in connection with the EC funding, and omit "committed". 8. In the future, we need a much smaller budget, perhaps half of that outlined here. AZ expected to have further news by 11 March on further developments for European funding; DW will incorporate this into the proposal at that time. In the meantime, the proposal should say only that part of the required European funding has already been found. (Nothing about fur- ther hopes.) DW recommended that all the activities described for the transition period be moved to the description of the full long-term project. 7.2 Organizational Structure from July 1993 AZ gave as his general view that the project could be considered as an expansion of the current project (with a budget the same size but the Guidelines themselves already finished) -- in this case, this skeleton is fine. Alternatively, we can be more realistic: we will not neces- sarily have the same level of support in future, and will thus have to reduce the project by defining it differently. The only place to reduce the cost significantly is in salaries: instead of three, only one project leader. AZ has sketched out a proposal for about half the budg- et; he asked for DW and SH's evaluation of the political likelihood of getting the funding described. SH said the point was that the work described has to be done, for the Guidlines to be used. Will other peo- ple do it? Should we be coordinating it? AZ asked whether the TEI would be working largely as a clearinghouse or as a locus for further work. In one scenario, TEI offers an international structure in which various activities already going on can naturally be coordinated. In this case we need only one project leader, to coordinate the infrastruc- ture for cooperation among the continents, responsible to the SC and supported by a strong secretariat. If this is so, the budget must be smaller. DW reminded the committee that an early draft of SC G14 had almost precisely this structure, and the current structure of three area directors with an administrative officer was the direct outcome of SC comments on that earlier draft. AZ clarified the In another scenario, the TEI would take an active role in the scientific work; in this case we need not three project leaders but editors as we now have them. If the TEI is modeled upon EAGLES, as under current EEC funding, the real scientific work is done in the volunteer technical committees. The edi- tors do not do substantial amounts of original technical work, but sim- ply take responsibility for writing down, in proper form, the technical work of the committees. This is similar to the original plan of work of the TEI, though our editors have been more active than expected in that plan. In EAGLES, however, the editors are not paid. NI urged that we encourage people to find their own funding for work on extension and further development of the Guidelines; MSM argued that this was hopelessly impractical. AZ and DW continued the discussion of the two models: TEI as infra- structure and TEI as the locus of continuing scientific work. AZ asked to clarify which role is desired, and which role should be assigned to whom. He distinguished between the coordinating role of the current editors (budget management, doing local organization of technical review meetings, ...), and their intellectual role (helping with the intellec- tual work, and putting the editorial work into a consistent form). The group distinguished various roles: * a manager, with budgetary responsibility, responsibility for chivvy- ing work groups late with their work * someone to edit the documents which arrive SH argued that this is precisely the model proposed long ago; NI denied that this was the same as any model proposed in any earlier draft of SC G14. NI distinguished those who 1. manage the project 2. create the material itself, inventing tags, etc. 3. work with those developing the guidelines and contribute to the intellectual work, but do not make anything up from the ground up MSM agreed with this description of roles, but pointed out that the reason the current editors moved from their expected role performing only the third type of work, and taken on unexpected amounts of the sec- ond type, was that they were made responsible for the coherence of the whole, and had to fill the breach when the working committees proved to produce less finished work than planned for. In order to have an organ- ization in which individuals charged with the work of the third type do not need to engage in work of the second type, it is essential to ensure that they have no responsibility for seeing that the work is done and is published. This would mean we must under no circumstances ever promise the completion of any given extension to the guidelines as a deliverable on a grant or contract, because doing so would involve the assumption of responsibility for completing the work. 7.3 Funding SH suggested that she and DW take steps to find some U.S. funding for the immediate future, and that AZ and NI prepare a proposal for the the longer-term organization and work of the TEI. AZ observed that though he and NI agreed on several points, it was not the case that they had a complete common understanding of the future. ACTION: DW, SH to take steps to find short-term U.S. funding Due: asap ACTION: AZ, NI to draft a proposal for the long-term future of the TEI Due: not specified Document number: SC W5 The committee adjourned for lunch at 12:40 and reconvened (without AZ) at 2:35. DW summarized some salient points of the morning discus- sion: he had a clearer idea about how the European funding needs to be described, but felt that the discussion had exposed a need to specify the overall philosophy of the TEI more explicitly, if only for our- selves. NI stressed the utility of distinguishing the different func- tions which need to be filled, and that of distinguishing what must be done from what must be funded. Were she to re-write the document, she would probably leave the description of the interim funding unchanged, and work exclusively on the description of the longer term. DW pointed out that the interim section had been truncated drastically: the only activities included would be 1, 2, and 3 (completion of toc of ED W23, modification and further extension, and development of casebook and tutorial materials. NI suggested classifying the activities: prepara- tory work, completion of old work, work on usability, new technical work, refinement of existing work. SH reported over lunch that she and the editors had discussed briefly how much can be done in a year or so of the transitional period. Can we, by June 1994, expect to complete the rest of ED W23's toc, a tutori- al, and a first casebook? The editors thought so. NI suggested prioritizing the activities very clearly; DW argued that prioritizing would be useful for us, but that not necessarily in the proposal, lest the agency choose to fund us only partially and choose among our items. SH asked what our minimum budget for the interim period would be. After some calculation, she and DW and MSM came up with the figure of $70,000 to keep the U.S. operation going for a year (MSM half time plus Wendy plus some small travel allowances). DW instructed MSM not to return to ACL the $20,000 loaned by them during the summer, but to keep it as a bridge loan. Resuming a topic already raised several times, MSM suggested extend- ing NI's list of the various distinct functions to be filled; he and LB suggested eight such functions, and the committee added others, arriving at the following list, which was complete in the sense that no one could think of anything else. 1. budget management and administrative, meeting organization, etc. 2. production of technically complete, intellectually coherent recom- mendations for text encoding 3. editorial (turns technically complete and sound recommendations into formally correct specifications) 4. technical review and acceptance 5. reformatting of material to make it suitable for public distribu- tion, paper or e-text 6. distribution (sells or gives away papers and e-papers) 7. promotion, training, workshops 8. software specification 9. software development 10. monitoring progress of work 11. consultancy (intensive work with individual projects) 12. manufacture of derived materials (e.g. user guides) 13. production of technical papers 14. field testing and evaluation 15. coordination/liaison with other organizations 16. production of principles and theoretical framework within which the rest of these functions can be performed (syntactic rules, semantic rules, design principles, house style) 17. policy formulation and priority setting, including agreement to new work items 18. reports to funding agencies and sponsoring organizations 19. preparation of grant proposals 20. keeping track of what's happening and providing information to whoever needs to know (internal to the project) 21. providing answers to external queries 22. checking to ensure that policy, once formulated, is in fact fol- lowed MSM suggested that the group work through the list of functions and clarify document SC G14 by ensuring that we understand which functions are associated with which positions in the document. After some discus- sion this was agreed. 1. budget management is assigned to the project administrator 2. development of recommendations is assigned in the first instance to the TEI-chartered work groups, and to external projects; SC G14 more or less implicitly assigns a sort of fall-through responsi- bility to the project leaders. This fall-through responsibility is a point of some disagreement within the SC. 3. editorial work falls to the work groups, and the external projects; if they fail to perform it properly, the PLs must do it, possibly with staff assistance 4. review and acceptance is the task of the PL and the technical review board; the PLs will be responsible for guiding and leading this work 5. reformatting documents is assigned to the PL's possibly with staff support 6. doc distribution and sale to PL, staff, and outside vendors 7. promotion, training, and workshops: PL, with PA/PS support for organization. May also coopt members of work groups and partici- pants. External vendors may conceivably be interested -- this eventuality would cause work for PLs and PS. 8. software specification: SC G14 does not allocate this function specifically. Some external vendors may do this; we will have no control over them. In practice should perhaps be a WG function? For the moment, leave unspecified. 9. software development: left unspecified. 10. monitoring progress of work (checking milestones): PL and SC and PS, at different levels. 11. consultancy: unspecified in this document. Implicitly assigned to PLs? Others also possible candidates. 12. manufacture of derived materials (e.g. user guides): assigned in doc to PLs (implicitly?) -- should perhaps be transferred to out- side vendors and WG members 13. production of technical papers: WGs, and PLs. 14. field testing and evaluation: PLs set up framework; work by APs and PLs. 15. coordination/liaison with other organizations: unclear: PLs or SC 16. production of principles and theoretical framework within which the rest of these functions can be performed (syntactic rules, semantic rules, design principles, house style): not specified (PLs and SC); NI suggests could create a WG. 17. policy formulation and priority setting, including agreement to new work items: SC, possibly technical review (some disagreement over extent to which the latter is responsible) 18. reports to funding agencies and sponsoring organizations: unclear: PA, with input from PLs? 19. preparation of grant proposals: unspecified 20. keeping track of what's happening and providing information to whoever needs to know (internal to the project): PA 21. providing answers to external queries: PA (may route queries to PLs or others) 22. checking to ensure that policy, once formulated, is in fact fol- lowed: PL, SC LB suggested the following grouping of the functions; he noted that the grouping corresponded to the roles assigned * 8 9 (unassigned) software * 7 11 14 (PLs) (non-creative, technically intensive) * 4 (technical review committee) * 3 5 (PL with staff support) editorial * 2 12 13 (WGs and PLs) creativity * 1 6 10 18 19 20 21 (to PA) day to day management * 15 16 17 22 (all to PLs and SC) macro management 7.4 Role of Affiliated Projects 7.5 Further Communications with Japanese No one reported any further contacts with Makato Nagao or Syun Tuti- ya. 8 REPORT ON CIMI GROUP SH reported that she will be attending a CIMI (Computer Interchange of Museum Information?) meeting in March at RLG. 9 SOFTWARE ISSUES SH asked for discussion of the software planning document distributed at the last meeting by NI and Jean Veronis. NI reported that she and JV had decided against attempting to start a TEI Software Initiative, owing to the time commitment required; the article will appear in the ACH Newsletter, without mention of the TSI, but retaining all the arguments for software development. SH reported that Robin Cover is performing some software evaluation for CETH; it will appear as a CETH technical document when done. MSM reported briefly on discussions with SH and with Helen Aguera at MLA in December. He felt that at least three distinct software projects might be fundable; they have in common that each focuses on a relatively small user community and involves funding for systematic development of software for that specific community: * projects like WWP and the Wittgenstein Archives, which need dissemi- nation mechanisms and project-oriented document management systems; * historical editing projects such as those headed by David Chesnutt or formerly by Charles Cullen * historical and ethnographic dictionary projects Helen Aguera had agreed that such work might be fundable. MSM said he did not know how best to integrate this into our existing schedule, but invited comments and suggestions from other SC members. LB pointed out that work of this type could profitably be combined with the development of discipline-specific tutorials for the fields involved. MSM agreed. SH reported that she had had a letter from John Bradley and Jeff Rockwell describing a project for an object-oriented derivative of TACT. She has also had a number of contacts with scholars like the editor of the Einstein papers, who are looking for ways of improving their methods of work. MSM reported that Allen Renear had arranged for a software- engineering class at Brown to be devoted to developing network-oriented client/server tools for document browsing, aimed at fitting into a Gopher-type environment and working with PSGML, an SGML subset defined by MSM in connection with client/server work at UIC. The committee expressed the consensus that this topic merits further thought, but no specific actions were assigned. LB asked for authorization to buy some number of copies of Erik van Herwijnen's Practical SGML in its electronic format, to resell on behalf of the TEI. He was so authorized. 10 ANY OTHER BUSINESS SH suggested that the TEI session at ACH/ALLC be devoted to the dis- cussion of a small number of examples, which could also be used in the tutorial for the advisory board. This was agreed; MSM hoped that some attendees at the technical review meeting may be willing to help. There was no other business. 11 DATES OF FUTURE MEETINGS The next steering committee meeting will be in Oxford on Saturday 16 May 1993, immediately following the technical review meeting on 13-15 May. Draft March 2, 1993 (13:41:19)