CSA Preface

Standards development within the Information Technology sector is harmonized with international standards development. Through the CSA Technical Committee on Information Technology (TCIT), Canadians serve as the SCC Mirror Committee (SMC) on ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee 1 on Information Technology (ISO/IEC JTC1) for the Standards Council of Canada (SCC), the ISO member body for Canada and sponsor of the Canadian National Committee of the IEC. Also, as a member of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Canada participates in the International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee (ITU-T).

For brevity, this Standard will be referred to as "CAN/CSA-ISO/IEC 19778-1" throughout.

At the time of publication, ISO/IEC 19778-1:2015 is available from ISO and IEC in English only. CSA Group will publish the French version when it becomes available from ISO and IEC.

Scope

1.1 Statement of scope

1.1.1 ISO/IEC 19778

ISO/IEC 19778 is applicable to collaborative technologies used to support communication among learners, instructors and other participants. The implementation and communicative use of these technologies entails the creation of information related to participant groups, and to the collaborative environments, functions and tools that are set up for, and used by, these groups. This part of ISO/IEC 19778:-, together with its subsequent parts, defines Data Models that enable the portability and reuse of this data in integrated form, and allow Data Model instantiations to be interchanged, stored, retrieved, reused or analysed by a variety of systems.

NOTE 1 A typical case of reusing a particular collaborative workplace Data Model instantiation (and its interlinked collaborative environment and collaborative group Data Model instantiations) is the automated set-up of new collaborative workplaces by using the specifications in the Data Model instantiations as templates.

NOTE 2 The reason for providing the specification for a collaborative workplace using several Data Models and their instantiations is to provide flexibility in the further development of these standards in future editions. By providing optional references to potential further specifications or standards, this approach goes far beyond the parts of ISO/IEC 19778 and the limited number of information elements provided by them.

1.1.2 This part of ISO/IEC 19778

This part of ISO/IEC 19778 specifies a table-based approach for defining Data Models. This Data Model specification is used for specifying the collaborative workplace Data Model. The same Data Model specification is also used in ISO/IEC 19778-2 and ISO/IEC 19778-3 to define the related components of the collaborative environment (ISO/IEC 19778-2) and the collaborative group (ISO/IEC 19778-3) in separate Data Models.

NOTE 1 This Data Model specification is also used in ISO/IEC 19780.

The collaborative workplace Data Model specifies the Data Model Elements and their interrelationships that enable the creation of collaborative workplace Data Model instantiations.

Any conforming collaborative workplace Data Model instantiation describes or specifies a particular collaborative workplace with which it is associated.

NOTE 2 How the association of a particular collaborative workplace Data Model instantiation and a particular collaborative workplace is implemented is outside the scope of this part of ISO/IEC 19778 (i.e. is dependent on the implementation of the used collaboration system).

Any conforming collaborative workplace Data Model instantiation

- references Data Model instantiations for both a particular collaborative environment and a particular collaborative group;

- provides its particular identifier that allows this Data Model instantiation to be referenced from other Data Model instantiations;

NOTE 3 The ISO/IEC 19778 Data Models and Data Model or Data Model Element instantiations are referenced by ISO/IEC 19780, which provides storage formats for captured communicative contributions, along with contextual data (relationship to other contributions, time sent, authorship, etc.).

- provides the life-span dates-and-times for the associated collaborative workplace;

- may provide a name and a textual description for its associated collaborative workplace, particularly for the purpose of full-text search for collaborative workplace Data Model instantiations.

1.2 Subjects and aspects not currently addressed in ISO/IEC 19778

Further parts or future new editions of the existing parts of ISO/IEC 19778 are anticipated. They include the following.

- Internationalization (e.g. national alternatives for the values of textual, descriptive Data Elements).

- Bindings for the Data Models of ISO/IEC 19778-1, -2, and -3 will be provided by additional parts.

- Best practice guides for the use of Parts 1, 2, and 3 will be provided by additional parts.

- Enabling the concurrent use of several international languages in ISO/IEC 19778-1, -2, and -3 will be reflected by future editions.

- Any lessons learnt from practicing ISO/IEC 19778-1, -2, and -3 will be reflected by future editions of these parts.

1.3 Excluded subjects and aspects in ISO/IEC 19778

Beyond the scope of ISO/IEC 19778, communities of practice or standardization bodies may provide further specifications or standards which are not yet identified. These anticipated specifications or standards may either make use of ISO/IEC 19778, or may - where this is prepared for - specify value domains for Data Elements of the Data Models of ISO/IEC 19778, or may represent extensions of ISO/IEC 19778 by providing and referencing Data Models with supplementing information.

Subjects and aspects not provided by ISO/IEC 19778, but anticipated to be provided by further specifications or standards, include:

- the specification of roles that collaborative group members may play, including the obligations and permissions associated with these roles;

- the specification of collaborative tools and their collaborative functions, including their technical capabilities and constraints;

- the specification of models for collaborative applications, including the modelling of tasks, activities and objectives of such activities.

1.4 Subjects and aspects addressed in related standards

ISO/IEC 19778 is closely related to ISO/IEC 19780-1. This related International Standard enables the recording, portability and reuse of the communicative contents, the messages or expressions generated in the course of collaborative activity. The way this communicative data are recorded and captured makes use of collaborative workplace, collaborative group and collaborative environment Data Model Elements.