i NEW NIST PUBLICATION

November 21, 1988

NISTIR 88-3859

The Hyperstandard: Applying Hypertext Technology

to Standards Development, Dissemination

and Implementation

Sanford Ressler

r * File Edit Go Tools Objects

Pdes Hyperstandard

Preferences

Customize usage of this stock Documents

Implementations

Organizations Standards

Main Menu

Click on Menu Items to See Lists of Topics

Conceptual Schema

Entities TM

Contents

Dictionary

Information Modeling

ISO

People

Close

it) « *! W

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

National Institute of Standards and Technology

National Engineering Laboratory

Center for Manufacturing Engineering

Factory Automation Systems Division

PDES Testbed Group

Gaithersburg, MD. 20899

September 1988

The Hyperstandard:

Applying Hypertext Technology

to Standards Development, Dissemination

and Implementation

by

Sanford Ressler

National Institute ofStandards and Technology

September 1988

Introduction

Standards in the domain of information processing and engineering differ

in several fundamental ways from those in the physical sciences. Most obviously there is no physical entity that we call THE STANDARD (the Standard Reference Material). In addition information processing standards are entities

which are to be "implemented" by some automata. A paper document (the

specification) is created and must be distributed containing all necessary and

presumably sufficient information required to implement the standard.

Faced with implementing a standard an individual must treat the standards document as the specification against which to compare their interpretation of that document. Typically a terse concise document which seeks to eliminate ambiguity of interpretation, the standard is often little help for the implementor.

A hyperstandard is proposed which uses several existing computing technologies (hypertext[3,16], CD-ROM[14], document processing) combined in a

novel way to address a number of problems in the development and implementation of standards. A hyperstandard system is the embodiment of a particular

standard, related documents, images, sounds and programs in the context of a

particular physically implemented system. The term "Hyper" is derived from

hypertext systems. A term coined by Ted Nelson[17]. A hypertext document

consists of a collection of "interconnected writings." The standard’s implementor or user could browse through the document and upon encountering some

point of interest could follow that point and travel along its connections to find

other (cross referenced) points in that collection of writings. Rather than limiting these "documents" to pure text we may, given present technology, also

incorporate graphics, audio and computer programs into the content of the document creating what is known as a hypermedia document. (The words hypertext and hypermedia are used interchangeably in this paper.) The concept of a

No approval or endorsement of any products by the NIST is intended or implied.
2

hyperstandard system is explored primarily in the context of a particular ongoing standards effort known as PDES[10] (Product Data Exchange Specification).

Optical Storage Technology

Much of this concept would be an impractical idea which would require

vast resources to implement and deliver were it not for the availability of an

inexpensive mass storage medium. That medium is the CD-ROM (Compact

Disc Read Only Memory.) CD-ROMs are a random access optical storage

medium capable of storing 550 million bytes of information on a 5 1/2” laser

readable disk (identical to the CDs used at home for music). That disk may be

duplicated in quantity for a cost of $2 to $5. Given this mass storage capacity

(equivalent to 300 unabridged copies of the novel Moby Dick) one can conceive

of providing standards complete with large amounts of supplemental information including available implementations. The CD-ROM drives used to read the

data currently function with personal computers, workstations and mainframes,

and cost around $1000.

Standards Development, Dissemination and Implementation

Three very different activities are encompassed in the scope of a hyperstandard system. First is the process of developing the standard. Second is the

dissemination of the standard. Third is implementation of the standard after it

has been defined. These three activities are very different and should be clearly delineated. Hypertext technology can be applied to all these activities in useful ways.

Standards Development

Developing a standard is often a long and arduous process. Affected as

much by ’’political” consensus as by technical decisions the standards development process is a good example of group work. CSCW[6] (Computer Supported Cooperative Work) is a new domain of research which addresses the area

of group work. One other factor which must be noted is an emerging trend in

the development of standards from the tradition of codifying existing practices

to the development of technology involving research for the creation of a new

standard. Breaking new technological ground is all the more difficult because

consensus views and expertise will be more difficult to find.

First let’s examine the standards development process taking place for

PDES. The standard is being developed by the IGES/PDES Voluntary Organi-
3

zation which is open to any interested individuals. The overall organization has

been broken into a number of committees. Each committee works on separate portions of the standard and produces working documents about their

domains. The problems increase when each of the committees’ work must be

integrated with the others into a uniform consistent whole. Overlap in the committees must be reduced with the goal being a standard that is as unambiguous

as possible. The following diagram illustrates a simplified view of the development process.

One question which needs to be asked is: Where are there opportunities

for the application of systems which can aid in this development process?

Definition is perhaps the lengthiest phase where experts in various

domains draw upon their knowledge and experience to identify and create relevant definitions. A mechanism to allow different committees access to documents produced in the definition process and to conveniently look at unresolved

issues (see figure 5) would help in communicating the rationale behind the decision making process. Quite often in the course of the development of PDES a

great deal of research and thoughtful reasoning which has gone into a decision

simply disappears. This information, while not part of the standards document,

would be useful, if available as supplementary material.

The reviewing process has been a particularly troublesome area in PDES

development. Many working "informal" documents are produced representing

individual opinions and positions. Reliable access to the latest versions of drafts

are often a problem in voluntary standards development where funding is very

limited and resources are stretched to the limit. Determining what documents

exist, their status and who "owns" them (see figure 11) would be extremely

useful.

Integration is an area which is also quite problematic. The information

from the various committees must be tied together into a single coherent document. Ambiguities must be identified and eliminated. When problems occur
4

there must be a systematized mechanism for feedback to the definition phase.

Software which aids in identifying duplicate definitions and which produces various cross-references and dictionaries could help. Figure 8 illustrates a display

where a user is able to look at the results of the two information modeling

methodologies (EXPRESS[11] and IDEFlx[9] as text) being used in PDES to

define entities. This information comes from different activities and sources,

yet can be placed together and presented to a user in a coherent manner.

Solutions to the many complex development problems are certainly not

presented here, however one can start to think in terms which may lead to a

framework for the development of standards that takes advantage of existing

hypertext technology. Currently the entire development process is done "by

hand." One clear requirement is the automated "computer sensible" form of all

documents, including illustrations, source code and prototype implementations

when available. This requirement clearly is expensive and difficult to attain

with the variety of systems being used.

Standards Dissemination

Disseminating a standard both physically and mentally to the potential

users is perhaps the most fruitful domain for applying hypertext. In this case,

dissemination is meant to cover both the physical act of distributing the documentation in some form and the process of getting that information into the

thoughts of a user community, i.e. education. Given a CD-ROM based hyperstandard system and a responsible organization for keeping that CD-ROM up to

date, a convenient, cost effective and efficient mechanism for distributing the

standard can be created.

Some standards documents are very obtuse and difficult to comprehend.

Everyone can agree that PDES is very large and complex. Hypertext can be

used to aid the process of learning about the standard. The process of educating potential implementors and the user community is a formidable task. There

is no magic, of course. A poorly written standard will remain poorly written

when put into a hypertext system. However one can try to reorganize the documents into more accessible and usable information. Placement of the information into an on-line form also allows for information queries and for an intermixing of graphics and text in a number of combinations. In addition, given this

method of distribution, one can allow users to add commentary (see figure 9),

first stored on the user’s local disk and later incorporated into subsequent

releases of the CD-ROM, creating a permanent record.
5

Standards Implementation

The task of implementing a standard such as PDES is enormous. The

implementor must be educated thoroughly enough about the standard to move

the specification into an implementation.

Documentation about the kinds of implementations and methodologies for

creating implementations would be extremely useful in the context of the specification itself.

A hyperstandard system can also serve the role of software librarian by

embedding public domain tools and making them accessible to implementors.

In the case of PDES a number of software tools to parse the various types of

representations (EXPRESS and IDEFlx) do exist and are a good starting point

for implementations. The difficult area of validation and testing can also be aided by packaging some of the testing tools with the specification. Pre-packaged "officially approved and tested" data structures and functions in a variety

of languages may also be included as an aid to producing implementations.

Rapid, convenient access to the specification will also aid in achieving high quality implementations.

A Test Case

The key to effective use of such large quantities of information is to organize the text, images, audio and source code into a collection of linked documents which may be accessed (searching and browsing) easily by the user.

Proof of the validity of this concept will not come by pursuing an abstract standard but rather by taking some existing or developing real standards and developing them into hyperstandards. PDES is the particular standard being explored.

PDES is chosen because it offers a chance to examine an evolving standard which is in great demand by industry. PDES is an extremely large, complex and ambitious standards project which could greatly benefit from this technology. Industry participants are being presented with a daunting array of

implementation possibilities and problems. A PDES hyperstandard would gather together not only the official standards documents but related research

papers, and public domain software tools which will aid implementors in their

tasks.

It must be stated very clearly that the way one might go about creating

this collection of "documents" is not at all clear or well defined. No methodology exists to guide one in the creation of such a collection of multi-media infor-
6

mation. No standards for hypertext exist, as yet. The best one can do is look

at the existing systems in the literature and learn from others. The work done

at Brown[19], CMU[1], Xerox[5,7,8], and Tektronix[4] is vital and must be

studied carefully.

A Prototype Implementation

A prototype proof of concept implementation of a hyperstandard is being

implemented using the HyperCard[2] program. HyperCard is a hypertext environment running on the Macintosh personal computer and allows one to intermix text, graphics and sounds with a flexible user interface. The designer creates buttons which may be clicked on with the mouse to travel from one "card”

to another. Collections of cards are known as stacks and one can link from any

card to any other card on the system. HyperCard also has a text importing

capability which may be used to automatically create stacks of card and to fill

in appropriate information from documents external to HyperCard. This important aspect of the system is discussed later.

The following figures represent a sample of how a user browses through

a hyperstandard version of PDES:

This is the main menu card. The

items on the left are the top level

topics the user may select. Upon

selection a list of sub-topics

appears and the user may choose

any of these. In this example the

user has chosen Conceptual

Schema and goes to the following stack of information.

P 4 File Edit 60 Tools Object*

Pdes Hyperstandard

Preferences | Customize usage of this stack

0o< time lit s

Main Menu

Click on Menu Items to See Lists of Topics

Conceptual Schema

Entities ”

Contents

Dictionary

Information Modoling

ISO

People

Figure 2
7

This is a stack representing

descriptions of the conceptual

schema. The descriptions were

entered by hand. The "official"

PDES specification descriptions

will be parsed into this format at a

later date. Each topic has a separate flip card entry and there may

be links between the various

entries. Clicking on the Main

Menu button returns the user to

the Main Menu card illustrated in

figure 2.

r * File^Edlt 60 Tools ObJect«

2.1 Types

This section consists of type definitions in the

Express language, e.g.: bound roles, various

enumerations and selections of entities, element

order, true/false/undefined, and rotational direction.

MrinMm ict lasm irrm uhium

Figure 3

Upon selecting Contents from

the main menu card the user is taken to the table of contents stack.

This particular stack is significant

as the textual information was cre- ated automatically from the

"official" TeX[13] (a text formatting language) documents which

are the PDES draft standard.

Clicking on Geometry takes the user to a card of subsections.

r * File Edit Go Tools Objects

Figure 4

Next the user continues traversing the table of contents and

selects the GEOMETRY subsection. Again all of this information

was entered automatically. Note

the issues button on the bottom

of the screen. This button could

take the user to an issues log of

unresolved issues concerning the

Geometry model.

r * File Edit 6o Tools Objects

Figure 5
This list of information is a collection of EXPRESS (an information

modeling language) entity names.

Clicking on an entity will take the

user to a new stack of information

containing the entity definitions.

r 6 File Edit Go Tools Objects

Figure 6

This card contains the entity definition for the previously selected

entity. This definition was parsed

into the card by a HyperTalk (the

programming language of HyperCard) script from information

derived automatically from the

PDES draft documents. The Contents button in the upper right corner can take the user back to

the beginning of the table of contents stack.

File Edit 60 Tools Objects curve

Contents

IhWnMnu

ENTITY curve SUPERTYPE OF (line OR

conic OR

bounded_curve OR

curve_on_8urface OR

offset-curve) SUBTYPE OF (geometry); WHERE

arcwf se-connected(curve); arc_1ength_extent(curve) > 0; END-ENTITY;

n

I'ConMnUfyjJ jfil < ClHprossX^ttriTX rule X prop X *ML j <£ C>

Figure 7

Upon clicking on the SML button

the user can see the SML (an

ASCII representation of IDEFIx)

definition for the entity and can

compare it with the EXPRESS

definition for consistency. The

SML definition was parsed automatically from files used by the

PDES Integration committee.

File Edit 6o Tools Objects curve

•%

topunu

ENTITY curve

! ENTITY curve * GEO-6 CATEGORY BY geometry-type OF geometry ROLE curve.geom-ld OF geometry-id ENDENTITY

El

MiiMm jCcMwMfyj- • j£j) O (ExpressX attrlb X rule )f~ prop 3E

SML )<3C>

Figure 8
9

After clicking the Commentary

button a user can make a comment

about the particular entity being

displayed and browse other comments. This creates a log of

issues in a relevant context.

Figure 9

By clicking on the User Preferences button on the Main Menu

card the user can customize usage

of the Hyperstandard system.

For example audio can be controlled and different views of the

entities can be chosen.

r 4 File Edit 6o Tools Objects

Figure 10

After revisiting the Main Menu

card the user can also look at a collection of official ISO document

descriptions. This stack of information will aid in determining what

particular documents exist and

who to contact for the latest

copies. The user can also click on

the owner’s name and be taken to

a stack of information containing

phone numbers and network

addresses.

File Edit Go Tools Objects

*N 1 1A date: 04/08/87

title:

Activity Model- Pevelop_£IEP Product Pata f.ommL

and Exchange F ormat—_ description:

provides an activity model in the IPEFQ

methodology which describes a sequepc&j)!

activities forming a procedure for tiie development of the STEP Product-Pata Model and

Exchange Format. It is a modif-teation of the. activity model developea for PPE$ fry the. PQES

Logical Layer Committee. ’

<£) C> c£>| CD owner: Roger Gale^

Figure 11
10

This stack contains a list of all members of the IGES/PDES Voluntary Organization. The names

and phone numbers were parsed

in from a file, into the cards with

this template. The pictures and

other information were added by

hand but could be done automatically.

Sanford Ressler

National Bureau of Standards

Gaithersburg MD

Member of PDES

Testbed Group

arpanet ln»88ierQar»-direr.arpa

301 975-3549 1301 869-61 88

Figure 12

File Edit 6o Tools Objects

Clicking on the Information Modeling topic in the Main Menu will

take the user to a library of information about the various information modeling methodologies and

techniques being used in PDES. In this example the user has clicked

on the IDEFIx "book" and is taken to the following card.

Figure 13

This card illustrates a sample portion of an IDEFIx diagram. An

IDEFIx tutorial is planned for this

portion of the system.

Figure 14
11

Back on the Main Menu a user can

choose to look at the involved

organizations. In this example the

IGES/PDES Voluntary Organization is chosen.

r 4 File Edit Go Toole Objects

Figure 15

This card is a sub-menu for selecting among a variety of topics specific to the chosen organization.

In this case a list of committees

that are part of the IGES/PDES

organization are presented and

can be further traversed.

r 4 File Edit 6o Tools Objects

Figure 16

This list of topics on the Main

Menu card also presents some of

the implementation possibilities

being actively discussed for

PDES. Clicking on Knowledge

Base takes the user to the following card.

r 4 File Edit 6o Tools Objects

Figure 17
12

A detailed discussion about

knowledge based implementations

could be placed here. Note that

next to the words object oriented

is an asterisk. This indicates that

clicking on the word will take the

user to a card which will discuss

object oriented programming

and/or data bases. These links

between documents are entered

by hand at this time but keyword

indexing methods should aid in

automating this process.

; 4 File Edit So Tools Objects

Knowledge Base

A centralized or decentralized (distributed) data base which contains an object oriented* form of the product. The 'knowledge base"

capability stems from the capturing of constraints and behavior of the various

entitles end embedding this behavior In the data structures contained In the entitles.

Figure 18

Scaling Up

Now that the concept and a prototype system has been presented, one

must ask the question: How do you create a full scale system?

As an example of how one might do this let’s again look at PDES. Let’s

also assume that our target system is going to be a Macintosh with HyperCard. The specification itself exists as TeX (TeX is a text formatting language

developed by Donald Knuth) documents, which are ASCII files that may be

parsed. One way of getting documents into HyperCard would be to preprocess

the documents on a system which has good parsing tools, such as a UNIX

based machine with YACC[12] and Lex[15]. Parsing would generate a set of

reformatted documents. A simple HyperCard script could be written to format

the new documents into a variety of cards.

HyperCard’s programming language is called HyperTalk and while it has

some interesting features it lacks good tools for parsing. The next problem is

formatting the document into meaningful and useful cards. A reasonable

approach is to create named template cards by hand on the Macintosh and

refer to those names on the UNIX machine. Figure 19 illustrates the overall

process.
13

llllllll

Original

Documents

• Y ACC/Lex

Temporary

|| Preprocessed H

Documents

Card Name- References

Figure 19

This technique works for the EXPRESS specification document which

is a highly structured document. Informal documents and illustrations are still a

problem. The IDEFlx diagrams of PDES can be represented textually by a

language called SML. An SML parser could generate a series of drawing

commands interpretable by HyperTalk which would automatically create the

drawing. However one can only see small portions of the IDEFlx diagrams on

a single card. A partial solution to this problem is to display only context diagrams. These diagrams show relationships for only one entity at a time.

Other diagrams and illustrations would be scanned and represented in a

computer sensible form. Given a raster type file of an illustration one could get

it into HyperCard by creating some simple translation programs. Another

approach is to provide a print button which would cause the diagrams to be

printed out rather than displayed. The CD-ROM in this case would function as

an image library.

Another problem in creating a satisfying hyperstandard system is generating the links. For example, a link between an IDEF diagram of an entity and

its definition should be created automatically. This could be accomplished by

the preprocessing technique discussed previously and by using consistent naming schemes. An IDEFlx rectangle has text associated with it and that rectangle could be made active by creating a button over it. The link to the

EXPRESS definition would be by a reference to the correct HyperCard stack

and card.

This entire scheme, while not particularly elegant, would work for most

of the PDES standard. In addition, the information obtained directly from the

standard and preprocessors could be used to generate useful statistical information, cross references, and indices. Clearly most of the work involved takes
14

place in the preprocessing phase. This has the advantage of providing a platform, at a later time, for moving towards an application independent implementation. Defining the functionality of hypertext/media systems is a ripe domain

for standards. SGML[18] (Standard Graphical Markup Language) is an ISO

standard which can be used to define the structure of documents. It has great

potential for use in mapping documents into a hypertext structure. This would

aid in porting a hyperstandard system to a variety of hypertext systems.

Conclusion

A hyperstandard system can provide a medium for the development, dissemination and implementation of information processing standards. Groups

of people may coordinate issues and integration activities can be enhanced. An

environment for convenient browsing of the standards’ specification and related

documents can provide a rich source of information. Easy access to the entire

domain of a standard can be used to help educate potential users and implementors of the standard. A hyperstandard system can provide implementors with a

much richer development environment, complete with research documents and

software tools.

A specific prototypical instance of a standard in development (PDES) has

been implemented and demonstrated to illustrate the viability of a

hyperstandard system.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Kent Reed for his ruthlessly accurate criticisms which have

improved this paper tenfold. Also thanks to Anne Gilman for implementing substantial portions of the prototype and Bruce Thomas for the print button idea.
15

References

[1] Akscy, Robert M. McCracken, Donald, L., and Yoder, Elise A. "KMS: A Distributed

Hypermedia System for Managing Knowledge in Organizations" Communications of

the ACM July 1988 Vol 31 No. 7, pp. 820-835.

[2] Apple Computer Corp. "HyperCard User’s Manual".

[3] Conklin, Jeff "Hypertext: An Introduction and Survey", IEEE Computer, Sept. 1987

pp 17-41.

[4] Delisle, N., and Schwartz, M. "Neptune: A hypertext system for CAD applications"

Proceedings of ACM SIGMOD International Conference of Management of Data

1986, pp. 132-143.

[5] Goldberg, A.J., and Robson, D. Smalltalk-80: The Language and Its Implementation.

Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 1983.

[6] Greif, Irene "Computer-Supported Coooperative Work: A Book of Readings ", Morgan

Kaufmann, May 1988.

[7] Halasz, Frank G. "Reflections on Notecards: Seven Issues for the Next Generation

of Hypermedia Systems" Communications of the ACM, July 1988, Vol 31, No. 7, pp.

836-852.

[8] Henderson, D. and Card, Stuart K., "Rooms: The Use of Multiple Virtual Workspaces

to Reduce Space Contention in a Window-Based Graphical User Interface" ACM

Transactions on Graphics Vol 5, Number 3, July 1986.

[9] D. Appleton Company Inc., "HSS - Information Modeling Manual IDEF1 - EXTENDED (IDEF1X)", Dec. 1985.

[10] IGES Internal Report, "A Reporting of the PDES Initiation Activities ", May 1986.

[11] "Information Modeling Language EXPRESS" ISO TC184/SC4/WG1 N224 Draft April

1988.

[12] Johnson, S.C., "YACC: Yet Another Compiler-Compiler", in UNIX Programmer’s Manual, Bell Laboratories, 1978. Seventh Edition.

[13] Knuth, Donald., "The TEXbook" Addison Wesley, 1984.

[14] Lambert and Ropiequet Eds. "CD-ROM The New Papyrus" Microsoft Press 1986.

[15] Lesk, M.E., Schmidt, E., "Lex: A Lexical Analyzer Generator" in E

TNIX Programmer’s

Manual, Bell Laboratories, 1978. Seventh Edition.
16

[16] Marchionini, Gary and Shneiderman, Ben, "Finding Facts vs. Browsing Knowledge in

Hypertext Systems" IEEE Computer, Jan. 1988, pp 70-80.

[17] Nelson, Ted "Computer Lib and Dream Machines", The Distributors, South Bend

Indiana.

[ 1 8] "Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML)" ISO 8879- 1986(E)

[19] Yankelovich, Haan, Meyrowitz and Dricker, "Intermedia: The Concept and die Construction of a Seamless Information Environment", IEEE Computer, Jan 1988, pp 81-

96.
^BS-1 14A (REV. 2-60

1. PUBLICATION OR

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2. Performing Organ. Report No. 3. Publication Date

NISTIR 88-3859 SEPTEMBER 1988

U.S. DEPT. OF COMM.

BIBLIOGRAPHIC DATA

SHEET (See instructions)

4.

TITLE AND SUBTITLE

The Hyperstandard: Applying Hypertext Technology to Standards Development,

Dissemination and Implementation

5.

AUTHOR(S)

Sanford P. Ressler

6.

PERFORMING ORGANIZATION (If joint or other than NBS, see in struction s)

national bureau of standards

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20234

7. Contract/Grant No.

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National Institute of Standards & Technology

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Gaithersburg, MD 20899

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T Document describes a computer program; SF-185, FIPS Software Summary, is attached.

11.

ABSTRACT (A 200-word or less factual summary of most si gnifi cant information. I f document includes a significant

bi bl iography or literature survey, mention it here)

A Hyperstandard is proposed which uses several existing computing technologies

combined in a novel way to address a number of problems in the developent and

implementation of standards. A hypertext document is creted which consists of a

collection of "interconnected writings". The implementor or researcher would

browse through the document ad upon encountering some point of interest could

follow that point and travel along its connections to find other (cross referenced)

points in that collection of writings. Rather than limiting these "documents"

to pure text we may, given present technology, also incorporate graphics, audio

and computer programs into the content of the document creating what is known

as a hypermedia document. Hypertext technology is shown to be applicable to the

various facets of developing and delivering information processing standards.

Combined with the increasingly available CD-ROM optical storage technology, a

new medium for delivering entire databases of standards, their related documents

and software to aid in their implementations is a realistic goal.

12.

KEY WORDS (Six to twelve entries; alphabetical order; capitalize only proper names; and separate key words by semicolon s)

CD-ROM, Hypertexts, Standards

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