ACM SIG Technical Standards Committee Report The SIG Technical Standards Committee (TSC) completed its fourth year of operation. TSC members participating in various standards-related activities have maintained a vital awareness for the ACM in important Information Technology (IT) standards. Furthermore, actions have been taken on behalf of the SIGs when issues of concern were brought to the attention of the TSC. Jim Moore, the TSC secretary for the past four years, has been recommended to the ACM President as the chairperson for the two year term starting July 1, 1996. 1. Publications The TSC continues to publish articles on standards-related issues. Members Rada and Moore have lead this initiative. A sampling of articles prepared during this past year are: Moore, J. W., Ada 9X Standard Approved; chapter of M. Ratcliffe, editor, Ada Yearbook 1995, IOS Press, Amsterdam 1995 Moore, J. W., Report of ACM's Technical Standards Committee, ACM StandardView, 3:2, June 1995 Moore, J. W., 'Process' as an Organizing Force in IEEE Software Engineering Standards, panel presentation, 2nd IEEE International Symposium on Software Engineering Standards, Montreal, August 1995 Rada, Roy, Sharing Standards: Consensus versus Speed, Communications of the ACM, 38:10, October 1995. Rada, Roy, Sharing Standards: Who Will Test Conformance, Communications of the ACM, 39:1, January 1996. Rada, Roy, ISO 9000 Reflects the Best in Standards, Communications of the ACM, 39:3, March 1996. Moore, J. W. and Rada, R., Organizational Badge Collecting, (forthcoming) Communications of the ACM, August 1996. 2. Special Projects Plans for next year include publishing standards-related essays on the TSC web page. Topics that have been chosen include: Software Life Cycle standards, VRML, Scheme for educators, Distributed Systems standards, Language bindings, Guide to the 900x series of standards. A call for participation from the ACM President for ACM experts to contribute to the television series World Business Review is to be pursued by the TSC if the series chooses to address IT standards. 3. Conference/Workshop The TSC held its annual one day meeting for FY'96 at the CSC in Philadelphia. The minutes for the meeting were distributed to the SIG Board and included on the TSC web page. The major issues discussed at this meeting were the involvement of SIGGRAPH in the development of the VRML standard, an update of the ISO JTC1 procedure that permits accelerated consideration and adoption of international standards based on "publicly available specifications" (PAS), and the decision of the College Board to use C++ for the Advanced Placement examination (given the emerging popularity of Java). This latter issue was brought to the attention of the committee by concerned ACM members. The TSC continues to represent the ACM on the ANSI Information Systems Standards Board (ISSB). The regular ISSB meetings have been attended either by Gargaro or Klensin. At the September meeting, they asked for the ISSB to place the PAS issue on the agenda for discussion. The discussion, which included a briefing on the current JTC1 procedures, failed to convince the ISSB to take a more active role in monitoring the openness of the procedures. The TSC plans to maintain an interest in this issue outside of the ISSB by writing a CACM column. A special meeting of the TSC was held at the end of FY'96. The purpose of the meeting was to assess the state of the TSC and to reevaluate its future role in the rapidly changing world of IT standards. The meeting was hosted by the MITRE Corporation in Reston, VA, and was attended by members Carson, Emery, Gargaro, Haynes, Montanez, and Moore. The minutes of this meeting are to be published on the web page. 4. Awards Given Out None. 5. Educational Activities or Initiatives In April the TSC sent a letter to the College Board. This letter was approved by the SIG Board and recommended that the decision to use C++ for the AP examination should be reconsidered. The letter stated that this decision had established a standard without being subject to open review by interested parties. The reply received from the College Board failed to provide any hope that the decision would be reconsidered, and claimed that sufficient review had been sought. Subsequent to the College Board's reply, the TSC has been asked by the ACM EC to cooperate with the Education Board and SIGCSE to improve the quality of this examination. The TSC has proposed that SIGCSE conduct a survey of colleges and universities to obtain a better understanding of the introductory programming languages they expect to use in computer science courses. 6. International Activities Carson, Emery, Gargaro, Moore, and Rada continue to participate in various ISO working groups. These include attending ISO JTC1 and ISO SC18, SC21, SC22, SC24 working group meetings in Australia, Japan, and Switzerland. The TSC retains Brian Meek as a liaison to the British Computer Society Standards Steering Committee. 7. Collaborative efforts with other SIGs or sister societies The TSC provided timely input to SIGGRAPH regarding the ACM's appropriate role in developing the VRML standard. This standard has been advanced as an ISO CD. At the request of several SIGAda, SIGCSE, and SIGPLAN members, the TSC undertook to write a letter to the College Board requesting that the decision to use C++ for the AP examination be reconsidered. The TSC has continued its liaison with the IEEE New Standards Committee and receives invitations to attend the regularly scheduled NesCom meetings. 8. Outstanding Volunteer Efforts None. 9. Membership Concerns FY'96 marked the end of the second two-year term for TSC members Emery, Gargaro, Haynes, Moore, and Spafford. Except for Spafford, all volunteered to serve another term. In the latter quarter of FY'96, efforts were made with the help of the SIGs to select new members. Two invitations were extended to candidates (Gallagher and Partridge) but were declined. The effort to recruit new members to fill the two open appointments is to be continued; several prospective candidates have been identified by TSC members. The TSC charter was revised to allow the immediate past chairperson to continue as a TSC member for the duration of the term of the chairperson. The change was approved by the SIG Board. 10. SIG Program Plan The success of the meeting held in June 1996 has prompted the TSC to recommend that a similar two-day meeting be held next year. In order to allow this meeting to be included in the SIG Board budget for FY'98, it is proposed that the meeting be planned for early July 1997. Finally, given the recent public announcement by the new ACM President regarding the ACM's unique qualifications for participating in emerging IT standards, the TSC chairperson is to seek a meeting with him and the ACM Executive Director to determine in what ways the TSC can assist in publicizing these unique qualifications. 11. Listing of computer and other equipment purchases None.