NOST News: Results of International Standards Workshop

International Standards Workshop: Panel 2 of the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS) and ISO Technical Committee 20, Subcommittee 13, held its fall workshop at the NASA/Ames Research Center in Mountain View, CA from May 11-22, 2001. This was graciously hosted by the NASA/Ames Life Sciences Archive under Dr. Paul Callahan.

Significant progress was made on a number of standards efforts. The three-day archiving session was attended by participants from a variety of space and non-space organizations, including the Research Libraries Group, Leeds University/U.K., Kings College London/U.K., National Library of The Netherlands, RAND Corporation, OCLC (Online Computer Library Center), and the Georgia Tech Research Institute. The "Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System (OAIS)" (http://ftp.ccsds.org/ccsds/documents/pdf/CCSDS-650.0-R-1.pdf) was addressed in terms of a few remaining comments from reviewers, and agreements were reached. The revised document will be ready for two-month CCSDS Red Book and ISO reviews in June 2001, with a full ISO/CCSDS standard expected in the fall.

A concept paper on Ingest standards, laying out a general methodology or process model, together with the use of a dictionary to describe metadata supporting Ingest, was also reviewed. This is expected to evolve into multiple standards and be a major thrust supporting widely applicable ingest automation. U.S. efforts on this can be tracked, and you can register to participate, by going to the US ISO archiving site at http://ssdoo.gsfc.nasa.gov/nost/isoas/us/overview.html.

The Data Entity Dictionary Specification Language (DEDSL) reviewer comments on both the Abstract Syntax and PVL (Parameter Value Language) Syntax were resolved and these are ready for release as final (Blue) CCSDS standards. These provide standard ways to express the semantics of data such as names, definitions, data types used, and other attributes. The XML/DTD Syntax of DEDSL was also completed by the Panel and is ready for formal agency and ISO review.

There is considerable interest in the use of XML for data packaging in many forums, both within and outside the space agencies. Panel 2, which has the ISO packaging standard ISO 12175 (1994), is beginning to look at an XML implementation. A special workshop is planned for August 2001 to review a number of competing efforts and to produce a working prototype. The objective is to take maximum advantage of widely available software and commercial support.

For further information on any of these topics, contact Donald Sawyer at Donald.Sawyer@gsfc.nasa.gov.