Minutes v1.2

[Geoffrey Rockwell]

TEI-C Council
Meeting, Jan. 12th, 2002
Minutes v1.2 by Geoffrey Rockwell with thanks to Merrilee Proffitt 
who provided her e-notes to me. V.2 is based on suggestions from M. 
Proffitt and Lou Burnard.
Document Number: TEI TC M 01

Attending: Christian Wittern, Perry Willett, Geoffrey Rockwell, 
Sebastian Rahtz (board representative), Merrilee Proffitt, Syd Bauman 
(editor), Matthew Driscoll, Lou Burnard (editor), John Unsworth 
(chair), David Durand, Laurent Romary

1. Initial Discussion

1.1 It was agreed that Geoffrey Rockwell would take notes.

1.2 John Unsworth provided an update on the Consortium. The 2002 
budget (handed out in Pisa) predicted 57 members and 50 subscribers. 
We now have 49 members so we are on track.  Total anticipated income 
$357K.  $16K budgeted for workgroups (separate from monies spelled 
out in NEH grant).

1.3 There was a suggestion that the list of institutional members be 
moved to a more prominent spot in the web site as that is what 
impresses administrators when one is making the case that your 
institution should be a member. Lou Burnard said he would look into 
that. <action n="1"><who>LB</who><what>Move list of institutional 
members up near top of web site.</what></action>

1.4 We reviewed the TEI-C Council Terms of Reference. Our priorities 
are to oversee changes and long range planning.

2.  Review of P4

2.1 Lou Burnard provided an update.

148 changes from the sublime to the enormous, 6 outstanding issues. 
It is still the intention of the changes to not break any existing 
documents.  Lou and Syd will produce a list of outstanding problems. 
<action n="2"><who>eidtors</who><what>Produce list of outstanding 
problems.</what></action>  The chapters of Character sets and WSDs 
need considerable revision (see below). The revised ODD system can 
now generate DTDs, data files used by the pizza chef, and HTML or PDF 
versions of the text of the Guidelines. It has not yet been enhanced 
to produce a TEIxlite version of the text but this is an option under 
consideration. LB said that it was important that such a version 
should not be regarded as a revisable source of the Guidelines. 
<action n="3"><who>LB or SR</who><what>Possibly revise ODD to be able 
to produce TEIxLite version of P4.</what></action>

We talked about how workgroups submit their work and how that 
integrates with ODD. There is a document (EDW55) that describes how 
draft chapters should be submitted which this group can look at, but 
there is no urgency to reviewing this (unlike the urgency to 
reviewing EDW54 - see below.) <action n="4"><who>TEI-C 
Council</who><what>Review EDW55 - Low priority compared to review of 
EDW54</what></action>

2.2 Element Parent Child Issue

One of the issues that arose in Pisa was whether or not to include 
for each element information about the element's parents and 
children. Various people at Pisa felt this was useful when using the 
paper guidelines. Lou felt this could be misleading since the 
relatives listed are not necessarily available. It was agreed that 
the parents and children should be included in the P4 in the manner 
they appear in P3. <action n="5"><who>Editors with help from 
SR</who><what>Add relative information to P4.</what></action> We 
voted on the issue:

- 7 votes for P3-like text
- 1 vote for dividing the information by tag set
- 1 vote for leaving relatives out

In the course of our discussion we discussed the possibility of 
providing a custom documentation tool that would produce a version of 
the Guidelines tailored to the project which could have the relevant 
relatives.  <action n=6"><who>SR?</who><what>Develop online tool for 
creating custom documentation.</what></action> While this is a good 
idea we felt the paper copy still needs P3-like relatives listed.

2.3 Call for changes for P3 to P4

The result of a call for changes to P4 didn't turn up much.  Julia 
Flander's questionnaire had a question that may have turned up some 
P4 issues. John U should check with her. <action 
n="7"><who>JU</who><what>Check with Julia about 
questionnaire.</what></action> David Seaman may have some suggestions 
that he will forward to editors.

The Ibsen suggestions seem more like P5 issues, since the intent of 
P4 was mostly to bring P3 into line with XML.  Ibsen suggestions 
should be deferred to a group that will review "core" issues. Editors 
will respond to Ibsen folks. <action 
n="8"><who>Editors</who><what>Respond to Ibsen folks.</what></action>

2.4 What has to be done to finish P4

We reviewed what needs doing to finish the P4. There are three major tasks:

2.4.1 Including the information about parents and children back in (see 2.2)
2.4.2 A bunch of little things
2.4.3 Revising two chapters - the XML chapter and the Character Set 
chapter (see below for discussion of both.)

2.5 XML Chapter

The Council was asked for input on chapter 2, esp. 2.11 which Lou 
felt gets dated quickly.  We felt that 2.11 should stay and be 
updated with reference to the W3C, stylesheets, and pointers as to 
where to get more updated information. <action 
n=""><who>LB</who><what>Update chapter 2.</what></action>

We had a discussion about URLs and how to include them. Some of the 
hacks mentioned included adding a URL attribute to xptr, xref, and 
figure (Sebastian's hack). We wondered if we should have a web page 
of hacks captured in the wild?  We agreed that the editors will look 
at this and that a note will be included in chapter 14 that mentions 
Sepastian's hack. A proper solution will have to wait for P5 and 
solutions from W3C. <action n="10"><who>Editors with help from 
SR</who><what>Add notes to P4 that mention issue of urls and provide 
SR's hack.</what></action>

2.6 Character Sets - Chapter 4

Christian summarized the work on chapter 4. The working group found 
it difficult to deal with both the SGML and XML issues around 
character sets. It was agreed that the chapter should concentrate on 
XML with notes about SGML where it differs. It was noted that the 
xml:lang attribute and the TEI lang attribute overlap but do 
different things so we need to keep the TEI lang attribute. The title 
of the chapter might be changed to "Languages and Character Sets". 
Issues with the WSD also need to be dealt with. An appendix of all 
the acronyms would be useful along with examples of the differences 
between character and glyph. In short the chapter needs work. The 
editors will return an edited version of the chapter quickly (end of 
Feb.) to the working group which will then try to get it back to the 
editors by the end of March. <action n="11"><who>Editors and 
CW</who><what>Return edited version of chapter 4. CW and workgroup 
will then review changes.</what></action>

2.7 Printing P4

We discussed when P4 will go to print and how it will be printed. Lou 
estimated 3 months to finish the P4. John is going to try to get an 
estimate for print-on-demand costs so that we can compare that method 
to massive print job of 1000 copies. <action 
n="12"><who>JU</who><what>Check about on-demand printing 
costs.</what></action> No CD with Dynatext version will be published. 
The schedule now is:

End of Feb. - Draft sent out (with Character Set chapter rewrite)
End of March - Comments solicited for no later than end of March.

3. P5

3.1 We had a general discussion of P5. We will not be constrained by 
trying to avoid breaking existing TEI-conformant documents in 
development of P5. This led to question as to what should happen with 
P4 when P5 comes out and what we should say about the life span of 
P4. Do we freeze P4 or accept only corrections for a fixed amount of 
time? We need to provide guidance to people who want to send 
suggestions.

Sebastian felt we should keep P4 around for 5 years (after P5 comes 
out), support software (Pizza Chef) and fix things that are actually 
broken for that period.

The question was raised as to whether we should say that P4 was the 
last to support SGML. Lou and Sebastian didn't want to go that far 
but it was felt we could suggest that new users use XML.

We agreed that we don't need to make announcements about the future 
status of P4 until P5 is out.

3.2 We had a discussion about whether TEI-C Council members who were 
not TEI members could have access to the member's area. John is going 
to e-mail the board about this but believes they need access in order 
to do their work. <action n="13"><who>JU</who><what>Check with board 
on issue of council member access to member area of web 
site.</what></action>

3.3 Lou reported on the areas where people had suggestions for P5. 
His list is based on a talk he gave in Pisa (see 
http://www.tei-c.org/Members/2001-Pisa/.) We discussed Lou's list and 
decided on the following possible areas for work for P5:

3.3.1 Character Encoding
3.3.2 Core Tags and Schemas
3.3.3 Metadata and Miniheaders
3.3.4 Source Description
3.3.5 Transcription of Primary Sources
3.3.6 Stand-Off Markup, Xlink and Xptr
3.3.8 Term Banks, Dictionaries and Ontologies
3.3.9 Tags for Authoring
3.3.10 Multimodal Communicative Acts
3.3.11 Metrical Annotation
3.3.12 Image and Multimedia Annotation

We first agreed that 3.3.2 was the business of the whole Council so 
we removed it. We then went through a process of selecting our top 2 
issues to be dealt with by a workgroup. The two that got the most 
votes were Character Encoding and Stand-off Markup, Xlink and Xpntr.

In the second round of voting the two issues that got the most votes 
of the remaining issues were Metadata and Miniheaders and 
Transcription of Primary Sources. Thus we have the following priority 
sequence:

3.3.2 - Core Tags and Schemas - For the entire council
3.3.1 - Character Encoding
3.3.6 - Stand-Off Markup, Xlink and Xptr
3.3.3 - Metadata and Miniheaders
3.3.5 - Transcription of Primary Sources
3.3.6 - Source Description

The general strategy for P5 is:
- Look at what the W3C is doing first
- Don't do things that others have developed standards for (like mathematics)
- Commission workgroups for what is left over

We agreed to commission two workgroups (given the money we have).

3.4 Character Encoding

Christian Wittern was voted chair of the Character Encoding 
workgroup. The workgroup gets a budget of US $8,000. The workgroup 
has the immediate task of working with the editors to rewrite 
chapters 4 and 25 and this will involve the existing members and can 
be considered a continuation of their current work. (See above [AI 
11].)

Once done with the P4 chapters the workgroup has is renewed for a 
term of one year and should meet at least once. The new membership is 
up to the chair. The workgroup should report at the Oct. 11th 
meeting. Their task is to review the proposals in extenso and propose 
revisions to the way character encoding is handled in general. This 
will involve a rewrite of chapters 4 and 25 - to reconsider the 
subject of character encoding and writing system declarations. A 
workplan is called for by the end of April, preliminary report in 
October, and final report in January of 2003. <action 
n="14"><who>CW</who><what>Create Character Encoding workgroup and 
keep int on schedule.</what></action>

3.5 EDW 54

There is a document (EDW 54) on how to make workgroups work. We need 
to all review this and send suggestions to editors. <action 
n="15"><who>TEI-C Council</who><what>Review document 
EDW54.</what></action>

3.6 Stand-Off Markup, Xlink and Xptr

We commissioned a workgroup on Stand-Off Markup, Xlink and Xptr with 
David Durand as chair. David has the same schedule with the 
additional request that he inform us by the end of February as to who 
the members are. This workgroup will also have a budget of US $8,000. 
We do not have a formal charge for this group; one should be drawn 
up. <action n="16"><who>DD</who><what>Create workgroup and keep it on 
schedule.</what></action>

For the record it was mentioned that one editor should attend each 
workgroup meeting.

4. NEH Grant

John updated us on the NEH grant. The funding came in May. There was 
a problem with the TEI tax status so it is the University of Virginia 
that administers the grant. The expenses have to be billed over a 2 
year period. The main thing the Council had to do was select people 
for task 2 (SGML to XML TEI texts conversion.)

We came up with a list of names for the 6 experts:

John Price-Wilkin, Wendell Piez, Michael Popham, Jessica Perry 
Hekman, Sue Fisher, David McKelvie, Frank Tompa

We decided that John should contact John Price-Wilkin and see if he 
would chair the group. If he agrees he should then be provided with 
our suggestions for names, but allowed to select his team. <action 
n="17"><who>JU</who><what>Contact J P-W about heading 
group.</what></action>

We also came up with a list of possible people for the 10 who have 
experience with SGML texts that need converting. This list will be 
passed to John PW.

Julia Flanders, Lee-Ellen Friedland, Perry Willett, Louis Barth, 
Perseus Project, Nancy Kushigian, Tomasz Erjavec, Slave Narratives 
Project - Natalia (Natasha) Smith, Peter Flynn, Sebastian Rahtz

We would recommend to the chair of this project that he/she make a 
open call for groups with significant TEI SGML holdings who want to 
participate. The chair, who we hope will be John PW, should be 
provided with a schedule that includes a report to the board in May. 
[<action n="18"><who>JU and chair of NEH group</who><what>Provide 
chair with schedule and chair needs to keep to it.</what></action>

5. ESTATE Grant

We discussed the request from the ESTATE project to write a letter of 
support for their grant proposal and approved it. The proposal is to 
develop TEI training, deliver it in Europe, and support two 
workgroups. We discussed the issues around the protocol of other 
groups running TEI workgroups. John U will contact the leader of 
Estate and clarify the language in the grant. We did feel this grant 
proposal was worth supporting as it will not only develop and deliver 
TEI training, but it will also pay for workgroups we cannot afford. 
Anyone who is interested in the grant should look at the proposal and 
get comments back to John as soon as possible. <action 
n="19"><who>JU</who><what>Work with ESTATE people to improve grant 
proposal and write letter of support.</what></action>

6. Other Business

6.1 Training

We discussed training and whether TEI should certify training or 
develop training. We decided to form a committee made up of Geoffrey 
Rockwell, Julia Flanders, Perry Willett, and Sebastian Rahtz. The 
committee should look at existing training and develop a training 
strategy for the TEI.  The committee should consider the question of 
what people are willing to pay? <action n="20"><who>Training Comm = 
GR, JF, PW, SR</who><what>Review TEI training and report back with 
strategy.</what></action>

6.2 Certification for Tools and Texts

We discussed certifying Tools and Texts. To be able to certify things 
we may need to trademark a name and/or logo. John will look into that 
<action n="21"><who>JU</who><what>Look into getting trademark for 
TEI.</what></action>

We decided that a committee should look generally into the issue of 
the TEI providing consulting. The members of the committee will be 
Matthew Driscoll, Merrilee Proffitt, and Laurent Romary. They will 
develop a consulting strategy for the TEI which could include 
consulting on software or texts. <action n="22"><who>Consulting Comm 
= MD, MP, LR</who><what>Review and propose strategy for TEI 
consulting and certification.</what></action>

6.3 Copyright

We discussed getting copyright clearance from all workgroups and 
Council members. John will work with lawyers to develop such a 
document and we will all have to sign it. This is to ensure that the 
TEI-C has a license to use all the materials developed for it. 
<action n=23""><who>JU</who><what>Develop copyright license doc and 
get us all to sign it.</what></action>

6.4 The next meeting may be Oct. 11 in Chicago depending on funding. 
Rockwell was asked when these minutes would be ready and promised 
them for Friday.

<p>Please send final corrections directly to Geoffrey Rockwell 
(grockwel at mcmaster.ca) and I will send out a corrected version.

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