Asian countries collaboration for developing International Standards on document processing technology

Yushi Komachi
Faculty of Information Science and Technology, Osaka Institute of Technology

Workshop on Understanding International Relations via Effective Standardization
June 29-30, 2010, Gaithersburg, MD

Introduction

This paper shows two regional standardization activities, CJK-DOCP and DocSII, taken by Asian countries for contribution to JTC1 international standardization and for clarification of Asian specific issues on document processing technology.


1. CJK-DOCP (China/Japan/Korea Collaboration for Document Processing)

1.1 Background

In the JTC1/SC18/WG8 meeting held in France, Prof. C. C. Hsieh (Taiwan), Prof. S. Y. Lee (Korea) and I met and identified the requirements for CJK discussion on document processing that includes Asian specific issues.

note1: JTC1/SC18/WG8 is today's JTC1/SC34
note2: JTC1/SC18: Document Processing and Related Communication
note3: SC18/WG8: Document description and processing languages

They hold the 1st meeting in July 1992, Japan, and confirmed the plan of collaboration for CJK and other East Asian countries. They positioned their discussion in CJK-DOCP as a preliminary works for their national standards associated SC18/WG8 development or for submitting to SC18/WG8.

1.2 Scope

Standardization for East Asian document processing technology required for international document interchange, in particular, among Asia Pacific countries, intending to apply ISO/IEC JTC1/SC18/WG8 developed standards to East Asian document environments.

1.3 Outcome

Some CJK discussions were submitted to SC18 and included in the SC18 developed standards and their Amd/Cor, e.g.,

Synchronization with SC18 developments is illustrated in the Table 1.

    Table 1 Synchronization with SC18 developments

1992-07 : 1st CJK-DOCP
1996-12 : ISO 8879/Cor.1
1996-04 : ISO/IEC 10179
1996-07 : ISO/IEC 10036 2nd Ed.
1997-06 : ISO/IEC 10744 2nd Ed.
1998-12 : ISO/IEC 9541-1/Amd.2
1999-11 : ISO 8879/Cor.2

2000-01 : 14th CJK-DOCP
2000-12 : ISO/IEC 9541-1/Amd.3
2000-12 : ISO/IEC 9541-2/Amd.1
2001-01 : ISO/IEC 9541-1/Amd.1
2001-03 : ISO/IEC 10036/Cor.1
2002-12 : ISO/IEC 10036/Cor.2
2003-10 : ISO/IEC 10179/Amd.1

1.4 International involvement and cooperation

Meeting by meeting the number of members increased and western members (most of them were experts on Asian issues) jointed as well.

The CJK-DOCP was a pure informal group and all the CJK-DOCP members participated to the meetings for their technical interests. Nobody represented their firms and organization. In CJK-DOCP, Prof. C. C. Hsieh of China/Taiwan and Prof. S. Y. Lee of Korea played the leading roles in particular for Chinese issues and Korean issues respectively.

The CJK-DOCP was ended due to the retirements of some key persons.

1.5 Organization and membership

CJK DOCP was a non-profit open group consists of experts who were interested in:

Accordingly the CJK-DOCP membership included experts from

CJK DOCP takes liaisonship with:

1.6 Activities (meetings)

1.7 Common agreements for CJK-DOCP activities

ISO/IEC JTC1 standards are developed enough generically to be applied to a number of applications in a number of countries. When actually using them, we face to some requirements for subsetting or profiling.

As a national issue, we will do it within a domestic committee. However as an Asian regional issue, we have to do it by the discussion of experts from related countries.

The Asian specific issues in document processing and interchange based on ISO/IEC developed standards are:

1.8 Documents

Some distributed documents within 10th through 14th CJK-DOCP are available on the web: http://www.y-adagio.com/public/committees/cjk_docp/cmt_cjkd.htm


2. DocSII (Asian Document Style Standardization for Information Interchange)

2.1 Background
2.1.1 Strategic Background

The background of DocSII was entirely different from that of CJK-DOCP.

DocSII was organized by Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI, Today's METI) in 2002 to make a good collaboration for drafting International Standards on document processing including Asian document processing.

In accordance with the original plan, it was ended in 2004.

2.1.2 Technical Background

2.2 Scope

DocSII intends to solve the problem with supports of document style/layout experts in Asian countries.

DocSII collects style/layout rules employed in Asian countries and systematically classify the formatting objects.

DocSII creates a style language library. Using the library, style specification can be carried out without particular expertise of style/layout rules and style languages.

DocSII submits the library to the ISO requesting an international approval. The internationally approved library will contribute to much more document users in the world.

2.3 Outcome

The discussions in the DocSII resulted in the publication of three amendments to ISO/IEC TR 19758 (DSSSL library for complex compositions) and resulted in the submission of a New Work Item Proposal (NP) for "Minimum requirements for specifying document rendering systems". After the DocSII ended, the NP was accepted and SC34 developed ISO/IEC 24754.

    Table 2 Synchronization with SC18 developments

2002-09 1st DocSII
2003-04 ISO/IEC TR 19757

2004-10 3rd DocSII
2005-07 ISO/IEC TR 19757/Amd.1
2005-07 ISO/IEC TR 19757/Amd.2
2005-08 ISO/IEC TR 19757/Amd.3

2.4 International involvement and cooperation

In DocSII, however, China and Korean took few important roles. At the time, China, Japan and Korea were P-members in SC34 and they were able to propose their comments to SC34 directly. Other Asian countries were not members of SC34 and DocSII collected their comments and submitted them to SC34. Therefore in DocSII, those countries were very active.

In DocSII, all the traveling fee was supported by Japanese government. Participant were dispatched from their organizations or governments from their standardization strategic points of view.

2.5 Organization and membership

Under the control of MITI, Center of the International Cooperation for Computerization (CICC) arranged all the membership and meetings taking contact with the governments of Asian countries:

2.6 Activity Plan and Meetings
2.6.1 Activity Plan

step 1
To collect document style/layout rules employed in Asian countries.
To extract formatting objects from the rules and systematically classify the formatting objects.
step 2
To create a style language library. (It will be done by several special experts of style specification languages, who will work in the background of DocSII.)
step 3
To submit the library to the ISO requesting an international approval.

note4: An existing example of style language library is ISO/IEC TR 19758.

2.6.2 Meetings

2.7 Documents

All the distributed documents of DocSII are available on the web:
http://www.y-adagio.com/public/committees/docsii/index.htm