Form 3 - electronic
PROPOSAL FOR A NEW WORK ITEM  	
Date of presentation of proposal:	Proposer: Martin Bryan	
2001-05-23	ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 34	
Secretariat: USA	SC 34 N 223	
 National Body (Acronym) ANSI		

A proposal for a new work item shall be submitted to the secretariat of the ISO/IEC joint technical committee concerned with a copy to the ISO Central Secretariat.

Presentation of the proposal  -  to be completed by the proposer
Guidelines for proposing and justifying a new work item are given in ISO Guide 26.

Title (subject to be covered and type of standard, e.g. terminology, method of test, performance requirements, etc.)	
Document Schema Definition Language (DSDL)	
Scope (and field of application)	
The definition of document structures, data types and data relationship constraints that can be applied to data represented using the ISO/IEC 8879 Standard Generalized Markup Language and its derivatives, such as ISO/IEC 10744, Hypermedia/Time-based Structuring Language (HyTime), and the W3C Extensible Markup Language (XML).
	
Purpose and justification - attach a separate page as annex, if necessary	
SGML Document Type Definitions (DTDs) allow document structures to be formally modelled but do not allow details of data types or data relationships to be recorded in an XML-compatible way. While the W3C XML Schema Definition language (XSD) does allow data types to be used to validate the contents of SGML elements and values of attributes, it does not allow the relationships between the values of different attributes and contents of elements to be validated. A new, compact, efficient and XML document type definition for the integrated description of document structures, data types and data relationships will make it possible to automate the processing of structured information resources to the level required by business users, which has a higher level of requirements than those identified from the publishing community for which SGML was originally developed. The standard will also define the scope and notation for converting and interworking a core subset of document structure, data type, and data relationship constraint models among the three notations: DSDL, DTD declarations and XSDL.
	
Programme of work	
If the proposed new work item is approved , which of the following document(s) is (are) expected to be developed?	
X	a single International Standard	
	more than one International Standard (expected number:  ........ )	
	a multi-part International Standard consisting of ........ parts	
	an amendment or amendments to the following International Standard(s) ..............................................................................	
	a technical report , type ........	
 Relevant documents to be considered	
The RELAX TR developed by the Japanese National Body as ISO 22250 and the TREX language developed by James Clark (the editor of the ISO/IEC 10179 Document Style Semantics and Specification Language) both propose efficient XML representations of document models, including data types. The widely acknowledged XML Schema Data Types specification will be referenced. The Schematron language allows the relationships between data elements and attributes to be described. The committee expects to be able to integrate the best practices of these proposals to form the basis of a first draft of the new standard.
	
Cooperation and liaison	
Liaison with the W3C XML Coordinating Committee will be undertaken to keep the standard aligned with the work being done to manage information sets developed for XML.
	
Preparatory work offered with target date(s)	Signature	
A preparatory draft will be contributed by the UK National Body for the SC34 meeting in December 2001.
	
  Sara Hafele, SC 34 Secretariat	
	yes		no	
Will the services of a maintenance agency or registration authority be required?			X	
     If yes, have you identified a potential candidate?				
     If yes, indicate name ............................................................				
Are there any known requirements for coding?			X	
     If yes, please specify on a separate page				
Does the proposed standard concern known patented items?			X	
     If yes, please provide full information in an annex				

Comments and recommendations of the JTC secretariat - attach a separate page as annex, if necessary

Comments with respect to the proposal in general, and recommendations thereon:	

It is proposed to assign this new item to JTC 1/SC 34/WG 1	

Voting on the proposal
Each P-member of the ISO/IEC joint technical committee has an obligation to vote within the time limits laid down (normally three months after the date of circulation).

Date of circulation:	Closing date for voting:	Signature of SC 34 secretary	

  2001-06-20	
  2001-09-20	
Sara Hafele, ANSI  	

NEW WORK ITEM PROPOSAL - PROJECT ACCEPTANCE CRITERIA	 	 	
Criterion	Validity	Explanation	
A Business Requirement	 	 	
A.1 Market Requirement	Essential ___
Desirable ___
Supportive ___	 	
A.2 Regulatory Context	Essential ___
Desirable ___
Supportive ___
Not Relevant ___	 	
B. Related Work	 	 	
B.1 Completion/Maintence of current standards	Yes ___
No___	 	
B.2 Commitment to other organization	Yes ___
No___	 	
B.3 Other Source of standards	Yes ___
No___	 	
C. Technical Status	 	 	
C.1 Mature Technology	Yes ___
No___	 	
C.2 Prospective Technology	Yes ___
No___	 	
C.3 Models/Tools	Yes ___
No___	 	
D. Conformity Assessment and Interoperability 	 	 	
D.1 Conformity Assessment	Yes ___
No___	 	
D.2 Interoperability	Yes ___
No___	 	
E. Other Justification	 	 	

Notes to Proforma
A. Business Relevance. That which identifies market place relevance in terms of what problem is being solved and or need being addressed.
A.1. Market Requirement. When submitting a NP, the proposer shall identify the nature of the Market Requirement, assessing the extent to which it is essential, desirable or merely supportive of some other project. 
A.2 Technical Regulation. If a Regulatory requirement is deemed to exist - e.g. for an area of public concern e.g. Information Security, Data protection, potentially leading to regulatory/public interest action based on the use of this voluntary international standard - the proposer shall identify this here.
B. Related Work. Aspects of the relationship of this NP to other areas of standardization work shall be identified in this section.
B.1 Competition/Maintenance. If this NP is concerned with completing or maintaining existing standards, those concerned shall be identified here.
B.2 External Commitment. Groups, bodies, or fora external to JTC1 to which a commitment has been made by JTC for cooperation and or collaboration on this NP shall be identified here.
B.3 External Std/Specification. If other activities creating standards or specifications in this topic area are known to exist or be planned, and which might be available to JTC1 as PAS, they shall be identified here.
C. Technical Status. The proposer shall indicate here an assessment of the extent to which the proposed standard is supported by current technology.
C.1 Mature Technology. Indicate here the extent to which the technology is reasonably stable and ripe for standardization.
C.2 Prospective Technology. If the NP is anticipatory in nature based on expected or forecasted need, this shall be indicated here.
C.3 Models/Tools. If the NP relates to the creation of supportive reference models or tools, this shall be indicated here.
D. Any other aspects of background information justifying this NP shall be indicated here. 
D. Conformity Assessment and Interoperability
D.1 Indicate here if Conformity Assessment is relevant to your project. If so, indicate how it is addressed in your project plan. 
D.2 Indicate here if Interoperability is relevant to your project. If so, indicate how it is addressed in your project plan.