2009-10-23

Meeting Information

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Attending: Rachel Ellaway, JB McGee, Co-Chairs; Valerie Smothers, staff; Susan Albright, Inga Hege, Jason Murray, Dan Walker, Luke Woodham.

Agenda Items

1 Review minutes of last meeting

The minutes were approved.

2 Discuss draft conformance statement

Valerie commented that many of the other standards included conformance statements. The one drafted for the group is based on the Healthcare LOM conformance statement. It makes explicit the assumptions underpinning the specification development. 

JB asked what the additional requirements were. Valerie replied that excluding self recursion in the activity model, excluding certain file types, etc were aspects of the specification that could not be included in the schema but were requirements nonetheless. JB asked that Valerie explicitly reference the additional requirements in the document. In addition, the conformance statement should indicate that additions can be made "but only by using XtensibleInfo." The group agreed to send the conformance statement to the Standards Committee. 

Valerie questioned whether there should be a conformance statement for the player specification. Dan commented that the whole specification really would be the conformance statement. Luke added that no one tool is able to execute all of the functionality, but they can be conformant to a profile. JB agreed saying it would be impractical for anyone to support any type of virtual patient package. No one would be conformant. 

Rachel added that is the whole point of profiles. The player specification is an explanation rather than a mandate. It's not a black-and-white set of rules. JB recommended putting in a note regarding the profiles. Rachel added that we should change from must to should in the player specification.

3 VP profiling reports

• Schema
• Branching
• Global Navigation
• Virtual Worlds
  

Susan commented that they did not do their assignment from the previous call. Jörn sent a PDF file this morning. He added that there is a difference between linear and branching; questions are not used to branch in the linear profile. In addition, they are using item comment for feedback. 

Susan commented that the task model is both global and linear. She offered to have Dan go through and see where they do things differently. 
Rachel encouraged the group to have substantial conversations around profiles between the calls. She recommended having spreadsheets with one column per system. That enables the group to see what commonality exists.  Currently there is a branching profile on Google docs. She will upload it to the wiki when it is in a reasonable state. In addition, Luke has done one for virtual worlds. Lou commented that he had upload a snapshot to the wiki. The next stage for him is to talk to Rachel about extensions. Some things are coded into the script within pivot. 

JB questioned what exactly the profile would consist of. Rachel replied that it would be another schema with documentation. Valerie can take over when there is sufficient detail. 

The group's goal is to have enough detail by the December meeting to hand it over to Valerie. 

JB questioned whether profiles would change more than the base specification. Rachel commented that they can be relatively fluid, but she added that there should be value to having the profile specified. There is nothing to keep someone from creating new profiles for new projects.

4 Next steps

Each group agreed to substantiate elements of each partner in the profile. If there are differences, that may require further negotiation. 
Valerie will e-mail November and December call dates to the group.

5 Open discussion

Decisions

Action Items

• Valerie will explicitly reference additional requirements in the conformance statement and then send it to the Standards Committee.
• Valerie and Jody will schedule November and December call dates and send them to the group.