RE: use cases and how to contribute -- Re: Semantic MyPage Use Case

While I would certainly be open to any sort of "poll" or voting system the
IG may wish to use to sort out its priorities, I believe all that really
matters is the contributions that each of us makes.  If anyone is waiting to
make a contribution until after such a vote, I encourage them to stop
waiting and start contributing to the objectives of greatest interest to
them personally.  On the other hand, if I am wrong about the value of taking
a vote on "collective" priorities, the sooner we conduct it, the better.
(However, I do not see how such a vote might affect what I personally am
willing and able to contribute.)

In the spirit of this message, I just contributed another use case, for Data
Sharing Policy Expression.  See
http://www.w3.org/2007/eGov/IG/wiki/DataSharingPolicyExpression, which is
now #6 at
http://www.w3.org/2007/eGov/IG/wiki/Use_Cases#Enable:_Using_the_web_as_a_pla
tform_to_deliver_data_for_re-use 

If the IG decides to pursue that use case collectively (or merely to
authorize me to do so individually, on behalf of the IG), candidates for
inclusion in an inventory of "model" data sharing policies include:

a) The U.S. E-FOIA amendments, which require agencies to make reasonable
effort to share in whatever formats they are requested any record requested
by anyone that is likely to be of interest to three or more others and is
not covered by one of the eight FOIA exemptions.
http://www.usdoj.gov/oip/foia_updates/Vol_XVII_4/page2.htm &
http://www.corporateservices.noaa.gov/~foia/foiaex.html 

b) GSA's Efficient and Effective Information Retrieval and
Sharing (EEIRS) report, which says agencies should post their public records
on their Web sites and that they should structure those records, as
appropriate. http://www.cio.gov/documents/EEIRS_RFI_Response_Analysis.pdf 

c) The U.S. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure with respect to the discovery
of electronically stored information (ESI).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronically_Stored_Information 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_discovery 

d) The U.S. Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA) Data Reference Model (DRM)
and particularly the draft XSD that was intended to implement it.  See
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/egov/a-5-drm.html &
http://www.w3.org/2007/eGov/IG/wiki/Use_Case_2_XSD_for_DRM#Use_Case:_XML_Sch
ema_for_Data_Reference_Model 

No doubt, there are good "models" in other nations as well.  I look forward
to learning whether the IG wishes to pursue this use case and, if so, who
will be willing and able to contribute to it.

Owen Ambur
Co-Chair Emeritus, xmlCoP  
Co-Chair, AIIM StratML Committee
Member, AIIM iECM Committee 
Invited Expert, W3C eGov IG
Membership Director, FIRM Board  
Former Project Manager, ET.gov 


-----Original Message-----
From: public-egov-ig-request@w3.org [mailto:public-egov-ig-request@w3.org]
On Behalf Of Robin Berjon
Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2008 8:13 AM
To: Jose M. Alonso
Cc: Kjetil Kjernsmo; eGov IG; Steinar Skagemo; Kjetil Helberg; John
Sheridan; Kevin Novak
Subject: Re: use cases and how to contribute -- Re: Semantic MyPage Use Case


On Nov 12, 2008, at 13:46 , Jose M. Alonso wrote:
> El 12/11/2008, a las 10:29, Kjetil Kjernsmo escribió:
>> This also implies that some distillation is needed, that Use Cases
admitted to
>> the note are issues where IG members find common ground, unless one
member is
>> deeply committed to something that other members also find interesting
but is
>> not assigning resources to.
>
> Do you have an opinion on how we should conduct this process? Would  
> you choose out of the ones in the wiki or would you try to identify  
> overlap and develop more generic ones based on those for the Note?

One issue here is goodwill creep. Use cases and requirements work  
often sees people violently agreeing that this or that use case would  
be absolutely wonderful to address, but when time comes to actually do  
something about it no one is willing to commit the resources to do so.  
I'm not pointing fingers here, I myself am finding it difficult to  
find the time to participate in the IG, and couldn't even make it to  
the f2f even though I was on site. The idea is simply to avoid wasting  
too much time discussing things that will get dropped because no one  
will work on them.

One potential way of addressing this, which will be familiar to some  
of you, is to distribute beans around. Each participant gets a certain  
number of beans (say five) that they can use to support use cases.  
They can give all their beans to one, or they can spread them out.  
Only use cases that get a certain proportion of the beans get to go  
into the Note. This can be kept simple, or made more complex (people  
get extra beans for putting in editing work, lose some for not  
attending meetings) and will never be absolutely perfect (which is  
where chairs can step in ex machina) but it has two advantages: 1) it  
encourages people to merge use cases that are similar since that  
increases their viability; and 2) it forces people to put their mouths  
where the beans are rather than gleefully supporting everything that  
sounds nice. The implementation isn't necessarily complex, a wiki or  
someone with a spreadsheet can suffice.

I'm not entirely convinced that we're at a stage at which we  
absolutely need such a mechanism, but since we're looking at a  
distillation and filtering process I thought I'd point out this  
option. In general my experience is that anything that can help reduce  
use cases creep early helps a lot down the line.

-- 
Robin Berjon - http://berjon.com/
     Feel like hiring me? Go to http://robineko.com/

Received on Wednesday, 12 November 2008 22:54:12 UTC