Re: SIF

[Mike Goehring <mgoehring@mistycity.com>]

Hi Bruno,

In lieu of posting my previous response to you, please post the following clarifications to your latest message:

"1. meetings are held in vivo in various places around the United States which pretty well precludes any direct participation by me and people like me who are not being paid for this work... or for whom the travel costs are prohibitive."

So far all of the SIF Initiative meetings have been held in the United States. However, with several Canadian vendors involved, I would assume that a meeting in Canada will occur in the future.

________________________________________________________________________

"2. you have developped a gradebook DTD with another company and submitted to SIF.  Is that posted anywhere?  I only saw the DTD for student and teacher information (work group #2) on the (microsoft-run) SIF website."

The Gradebook Workgroup worked together to come up with a suggested XML standard for SIF. That standard is not finalized, and will evolve once the SIS Workgroup and the Gradebook Workgroup meet and discuss a mutually accepted standard. Note that once a standard is agreed upon, it will only be used as a starting point. Future evolution of the standard will undoubtedly add more to it.

________________________________________________________________________

"3. microsoft may be "using" this process to promote its zis server software. It sounds like you are not sure whether SIF will be separate from ZIS.  The website makes no mention of zis and does say that the standard is to be "open" and "free".  Now clearly, I know that those two key words have varying meaning depending on who utters them :-) which is why, we are working with a clear definition provided by the FSF Free Software Foundation and the Open Source Definition and the tradition of Internet Standards."

Microsoft has made it clear that their version of the ZIS is separate from the SIF Initiative. As long as the SIF Initiative meetings are hosted by Microsoft only, many vendors are reluctant to devote their resources to the idea. Once a meeting is held by Apple, IBM, Novell, Oracle, Sun, etc., I feel that many more vendors will begin pushing the SIF Initiative.

________________________________________________________________________

"IMS which is a somewhat comparable but older initiative has disappointed us by its closed process where they basically expect us to wait around for the paying members to post their work (by deadlines which they miss)

I guess we are witnessing a culture clash :-)"

I don't know if I would call it a "culture clash" between Educom IMS and the SIF Initiative. From Educom IMS' point of view, as witnessed in the January SIF meeting, they realize that they are global in nature, where SIF is currently only North America. They were at the meeting to let all of the vendors present know about how their ideas and SIF relate.

________________________________________________________________________

Realize that every vendor I have spoken with is very interested in finding a way to reduce the redundancy in the educational system. Hopefully the SIF Initiative will find an identity and be endorsed by everyone as the way to reduce the redundancy. For it to succeed, however, another company would have to host a SIF meeting in the immediate future.

Feel free to post this response,

Mike