[DRAFT] Semantics for Web Services Characterization Group Charter

Issue-1: Should this Group be an Incubator or Working Group? Incubator seems the most logical path at this point.

1. Mission
2. Scope and Goal
3. Deliverables
4. Schedule
5. Relationships with Other Work
6. Participation, Meetings, and Logistics
7. Patent Disclosures

[FOR DISCUSSION ONLY] Please send comments to member-ws@w3.org (member only).

Mission

The Web Services technologies have become more mature in the past years and new challenges are now in consideration. There is a growing interest towards the use of Semantic Web techniques along with Web Services standards to target a broader range of functionalities.

The Semantic Web Services Interest Group has provided a way to gather a large community of academia and industry researchers. However, the Workshop on Frameworks for Semantics in Web Services demonstrated that very few analysis of real-scale applications have been conducted so far. This results in lots of "ad-hoc" modelling, with monolithic approaches, around particular goals and no guarantee of usability and extensibility to general requirements. However, WSDL-S was considered a small but important step towards Semantic Web Services.

The mission of the Semantics for Web Services Characterization Group is to continue in the footprints of solutions like WSDL-S and study the field of applications and identify key points that are not immediately solved using Web services technologies. This characterization effort will demonstrate the existence of requirements, hence the need for one or more pieces of a framework for the use of Semantics in Web services. If it succeeds in this characterization work, the Group is expected to propose future directions of work in the domain of Semantics for Web Services.

Scope and Goal

Issue-2: we should say something on the scope here.

The goals of the Semantics for Web Services Characterization Group are to:

• gather real-scale applications use cases, characterizing the necessary functionalities in details, classifying those which are not provided/achievable using the current Web services technologies;
• provide an overview of common ground functionalities in scope for the largest set of use cases;
• conclude on the feasibility of one or several pieces of framework satisfying those requirements;
• recommend for further work in this area, such as by providing proposed charters.

Issue-3: do we need an out of scope section?

Deliverables

The Semantics for Web Services Characterization Group has the following deliverables:

Use Cases Group Note

The Use Cases document will record relevant use cases to understand how and where Semantics is needed in addition to Web services technologies to achieve some functionalities. Each use case will be characterized in an agreed-upon format that identifies each of the functionalities required to satisfy the use case.

Characterization Document Group Note

The Characterization document will contain one or more classifications of the required functionalities into relevant scopes. If the Group is able to agree upon a core set of functionalities for one or more pieces of a framework, it may document and perform characterizations of existing technologies.

Schedule

These are subject to revision due to editorial needs and external scheduling issues; updates will be negotiated with the related groups and recorded on the Semantics for Web Services Characterization Group home page.

December 2005

Group formation.

April 2006

First Draft of the Use Cases document.

July 2006

First Draft of the Characterization document.

December 2006

Group ends.

The expected duration of the Group is 1 year, through 31 December 2006.

Coordination with Other Groups

The Group should coordinate its efforts with W3C Groups, in particular in the Web Services Activity and the Semantic Web Activity, in particular:

• Web Services Description Working Group
• Web Services Choreography Working Group
• RDF Data Access Working Group
• Semantic Web Best Practices and Deployment Working Group

Coordination will be managed through the Web Services Coordination Group.

The Group should also coordinate with relevant external Groups (see also the position papers for the Frameworks on Semantics in Web Services worshops).

Participation, Meetings and Logistics

See Issue-1.

Patent Disclosures

The Semantics for Web Services Characterization Group provides an opportunity to share perspectives on Semantics for Web Services Characterization in general. W3C reminds Group participants of their obligation to comply with patent disclosure obligations as set out in Section 6 of the W3C Patent Policy. While the Group does not produce Recommendation-track documents, when Group participants review Recommendation-track specifications from other Groups, the patent disclosure obligations do apply.

Last Modified: $Date: 2005/10/27 16:03:10 $