Documentation and Testing Meeting 2010-09-08

Notes from the Documentation and Testing WG
Date: September 8, 2010
Time: 2:00pm - 3:00pm EST
Attendees:
Janet Campbell, Keith Boone, Nageshwara (Dragon) Bashyam, Noam Arzt, Karen Witting, Parag More, Andy Oram, Will Ross, David Tao, Douglass Pratt, Arien Malec, Caitlin Ryan

Actions

Actions for This Week

#	Date	Action	Status	Owner	Due Date
34	9/8/10	Add Overview comments to the wiki.(NHIN Direct Overview Call for Consensus)	Closed	Janet Campbell	9/9/10
35	9/8/10	Edit final draft of NHIN Direct Overview.	Open	Original editors + Karen Witting and Noam Arzt	9/14/10
36	9/8/10	Schedule NHIN Direct Overview meeting for this coming week.	Open	Janet Campbell	9/10/10
37	9/8/10	Complete S/MIME Spec with edits and additional threat model.	Open	Arien Malec Sean Nolan	9/14/10 (draft by 9/9/10)
38	9/8/10	Reschedule XDD meeting for 2:00-3:00 or before 12:30 because Karen, John, and Vassil will be on another call.	Open	Arien Malec	9/9/10
39	9/8/10	Sign up on the wiki or through Dragon to assist with the NHIN Direct Security Overview. Group will meet Monday (09/13/10).	Open	Interested WG members	9/13/10
40	9/8/10	Start putting together rough draft of Implementation Geographies FAQ list.	Open	Janet Campbell	9/14/10
41	9/8/10	Continue work on Deployment Model	Open	John Moehrke	9/14/10
42	9/8/10	Help shepherd the process of interviewing developers to enable quality documentation of code.	Open	Andy Oram	Ongoing
43	9/8/10	Assist with documentation of Java code.	Open	Andy Oram	Ongoing
44	9/8/10	Join Reference Implementation calls to serve as liaison between WGs.	Open	Andy Oram (ONC team will facilitate)	9/9/10
45	9/8/10	Set up a Google group mailing list for the Doc and Testing WG.	Open	ONC Team	9/9/10

Actions from Last Week

	Date	Action	Status	Owner	Due Date
26	9/1/10	Assist in scheduling focus meetings.	Open	ONC Team	9/3/10
27	9/1/10	Aim for final consensus for Content Security document, at least at WG level.	Open	Content Security Spec Team	9/8/10
28	9/1/10	Aim for good working draft of the XDD spec.	Open	XDD Spec Team	9/8/10
29	9/1/10	Own Deferred Policy Questions document.	Open	Janet Campbell	9/8/10
30	9/1/10	Contribute to and edit Deferred Policy Questions document.	Open	David Tao, Parag More, Andy Oram	9/8/10
31	9/1/10	Aim for consensus ready Deferred Policy Questions document.	Open	Deferred questions/policy Team	9/8/10
32	9/1/10	Obtain consent from IG about the NHIN Direct Overview document.	Open	WG	9/8/10
33	9/1/10	Rename Security Overview and NHIN Security Overview pages on the wiki to eliminate confusion.	Open	Arien Malec	9/8/10

Notes

Janet Campbell
· She missed IG on 2010-09-07 and last week’s Documentation and Testing WG meeting, so still catching up to speed.
· WG finalized the NHIN Direct Overview: got lots of thank-yous from members of other WGs. Communications WG is getting a lot of use out of the Overview document.
· Today (2010-09-08) is the last day of the Call for Consensus on the Overview document.
· Feedback can be found on the spreadsheet on the wiki.
· Next step: take the paper back to original group of authors, address feedback to incorporate into final draft of document or leave out.
o Then, process question, does it get reopened for another Call for Consensus or do we just let individuals know what the outcome of their feedback was?

Arien Malec
· Thinks it is OK to just respond to the individuals who left feedback.
· Then if people object to the changes made to the document, it could go back to the Consensus process.

Karen Witting
· Definition of HISP was changed in the Overview document.
· Was the change accidental or intentional?

Janet Campbell
· David or Dragon wrote that section.

Arien Malec
· Should be “Health Information Service Provider” versus “Health Internet Service Provider.”

David Tao
· Perception was that it should be Internet.

Karen Witting
· In the Abstract Model, a HISP is a Health Information Service Provider.
· Changing the name changes the concept.
· She views the HISP as an enabling organization, not an internet provider.

David Tao
· Is it just a term or are there other words implying the meaning of a HISP?

Karen Witting
· In document it says it “is analogous to an Internet Service Provider.”

David Tao
· Recalled that in the consensus meeting Sean Nolan expected some Internet Service Providers would want to become HISPs. But he wasn’t saying that was the only kind of HISP that would exist.

Will Ross
· VisionShare comments about the Overview were useful.
· The Overview document didn’t harmonize the terminology used.
· “Health Internet” and “Sender/Receiver/Destination” are still ambiguous.

Noam Arzt
· When addressing the average person, “sender” seems more natural.

David Tao
· Every day terms are important in outside messaging beyond the group.
· But ideally WG could have official internal terms like “source” or “destination.”
· Then WG can push materials to the Communications WG for repackaging for wider audiences.

Arien Malec
· HISP is a special case.
· Feels HISP is easily understandable.
· “Health Internet Service Provider” doesn’t imply they are giving internet.
· Using people-friendly language is a fine goal but can cause confusion.

Janet Campbell
· Even though Health Internet Service Provider is misleading, wants to be careful because there have been various descriptions of the HISP as a service provider model, managing certificates and without a trusted relationship.
· Documentation WG might be deciding what a HISP will be and will do, intentionally or unintentionally.
· Yet each WG member has their own interpretation of a HISP.
· WG members still don’t know what a HISP will be exactly.
· Could call out the uncertainty more through the documents.

Karen Witting
· NHIN Direct members never agreed on what services a HISP provides.
· A HISP is an “enabling organization” but exactly what and how it enables is confusing.
· She sees as an organization that enables communication.

David Tao
· Issue of whether a HISP is a separate organization or within the sender’s system already.
· Deployment model question.
· If the Abstract Model does have a HISP, what are the functions performed?

Janet Campbell
· WG could describe the HISP on a functional level and then call out how it is going to work.
· Has heard people describe NHIN Direct in such a way that there will be nothing in between you sending and receiving info, which is not necessarily accurate when a HISP is added.

David Tao
· It is true one doesn’t need any organization entity or additional software if both sender and receiver are their own HISPs.

Arien Malec
· That was the intention of the original Abstract Model.


Janet Campbell
· This WG needs to be careful not to be prescriptive in our language.

Arien Malec
· Would be bad to include State HIE models in our description.
· State HIEs want to include services on top of registry and repository services, but we don’t want to include those models in our documentation.
· Want to avoid being too editorializing in this document.

Janet Campbell
· Every word matters.
· Karen’s point was a good one: description of a HISP might be misleading.
· Any other comments on the Overview?

Karen Witting
· Where are the comments from Barry Hieb?

Janet Campbell
· They were not sent to the entire group.
· Also comments from Ross Martin of Deloitte were helpful.
· Next step: get the core group of authors back together.
· Barry’s comments illustrated that in some cases where we thought we were relatively clear about what NHIN Direct would do, he had had a different interpretation and was concerned that the Overview document did not describe the same thing.

David Tao
· For example, the legally binding assertion that sender abided by certain principles.
· We softened some language “sender has verified” sounded more formal than the activities that would actually take place.
· Barry and proposed to formalize the language much more.

Karen Witting
· Interested in reading comments.
· Is it feasible to add to everyone else’s comments?

Janet Campbell
-->Will put spreadsheet on the wiki. (NHIN Direct Overview Call for Consensus)

Karen Witting
· Issue of patient ID is interesting.
o Subtle shades of meaning.
o Is there a need for pre-negotiated patient to patient ID?

Arien Malec
· Comments revealed that while there had been several internal discussions on multiple topics, persons outside of those conversations who do not share the knowledge of the discussion might have concerns and react to the material in a different way.

Karen Witting
· IT has this problem too.

David Tao
· Challenge is to keep document short at overview level, but still reveal all points discussed and decisions the group came to.

Karen Witting
· Thinks a complete document is impossible.
· Struggles with this all the time.

Janet Campbell
· Are there people who were not involved in original edits who now want to be involved?
· -->Noam, Karen will be editors on second draft.
· -->Janet will schedule something for this coming week to come to a final draft by next week.

Noam Arzt
· Right but anything we finalize is still provisional.
· Possible we may need to adjust as we really see what we have.

Janet Campbell
· By final means there are no known immediate next steps.
· Anything to add to NHIN Direct Overview document?
· Updates on other documents?
Policy Questions for Implementations
· David, Parag, Andy, John and Janet met to discuss Policy Questions for Implementations, a wiki page that lists out all of the things that NHIN Direct doesn’t address that implementation geographies would need to address before they can go live.
· Got 2/3 through the document, meeting again on Thursday.

Arien Malec
· -->S/MIME spec has a couple of edits that need Arien to do some dedicated Google time.
· -->Sean is going to also put in an additional threat model.
· Believes the S/MIME spec will then be ready for consensus, through the WG or through the work team.
· Asked a process question about which review process would be better.

Janet Campbell
· Wants to take straight to Consensus.
· Other opinions?

Round the Room: S/MIME spec review process and overall review process

Keith Boone	· Agreed with the fastest way to get things done. Take to IG.
Dragon Bashyam	· Agreed. · People in this group still can comment through the Call for Consensus process.
Noam Arzt	· Had no problem with taking to the IG. · Felt the more technical the document is, the less of a problem he has bringing it to the IG. · For less technical documents when it comes down to language and nuance, he thinks the WG should ask questions of the IG rather than sending them the document. · On the NHIN Direct Overview, enough members of the WG were involved in the group that it was fine.
Andy Oram	· Agreed to send to IG.
Karen Witting	· Agreed but suggested a review prior to sending document to the IG.
David Tao	· Agreed to send to IG.
Will Ross	· Agreed to send to IG.
Douglass Pratt	· Agreed to send to IG.

Janet Campbell
· Careful to have all completed documents ready for the IG and not send the draft form.

Arien Malec
XDD spec
· Made good progress.
· Scheduled next meeting.
· Essentially going over metadata items
· Karen put data in for SOAP
· Need to do a final review of the whole document to make sure they have agreement on all the key pieces.
· Moving slower than had hoped but he is confident they will get down to a spec they can implement.
· Java team is doing a lot of it, and even doing some implementation against it.

Karen Witting
· Found there is an overlap between two scheduled calls.
· She, John, and Vassil will be on an IT call from 12:30 to 2:30.
· -->2:00-3:00 or before 12:30 would be OK to reschedule the meeting.

Janet Campbell
· Is there a date the WG can expect the threat model?

Arien Malec
· Setting a goal to have available for review by the IG by Tuesday, 2010-09-14.
· -->So a draft needs to be ready for tomorrow.

Janet Campbell
· Updates on the Security Overview document?

Arien Malec
· There is now one consolidated version of the document.

Janet Campbell
· Thought there were two versions: one is a spec and one is a description.

Dragon Bashyam
· Update on the NHIN Direct Security Overview: haven’t done much on it in the last couple of weeks. The authors were working on XDD and other docs.
· Could be next candidate to focus on.
· He, Will, John M. were working on it.

Janet Campbell
· -->Asked interested people to sign up on the wiki or let Dragon know they will assist with the NHIN Direct Security Overview.

Dragon Bashyam
· -->Meeting on Monday.

Janet Campbell
· Had asked Paul if Implementation Geographies WG can start their FAQ list.

David Tao
· Paul brought up the FAQs at today’s Implementation Geographies WG and several questions were raised.
· There were 4-5 specific questions that came up.

Janet Campbell
· -->Can start putting together, rough drafting this week or next, finalize in the coming weeks.
· -->John wrote a first draft of a Deployment Model, very useful, was hoping he could finish.

Arien Malec
· He had one or two more edits. It is on his “tomorrow” list.

Will Ross
· There have been lots of calls scheduled.

Janet Campbell
· API documentation is now linked, so all Priority One documents are being worked on.

Arien Malec
· There are lots of opportunities for technical editing.

Janet Campbell
· Asked Arien what to do about the documents that might not go smoothly through the WG’s review process, such as documents that one person has authored and others do technical editing.
· Is there a better way to reach quality?

Arien Malec
· Andy would be the better person to ask about the editing process.
· Developers refer to the documentation often. Need them to be clear. But also need them to be written by someone with a high level of technical expertise.

Andy Oram
· Suggested that an editor should have a dialogue with the person writing the code.
· How big is the code?

Arien Malec
· Took him weeks to get through and document the code on the C# side.
· 2,000 themes documented.

Andy Oram
· He would talk to the people who developed the API.
· Suggested doing a few calls for each person and then they could get a good idea of how to document the code well.
· -->Can help shepherd the process.
· Have to make sure the people writing the code get some training on how to document.

Janet Campbell
· All Priority One documents are being worked on.
· WG is currently working on enough that we don’t need to add more to work on.
· Asked if anyone was interested in taking on more work.

Andy Oram
· Feels like he hasn’t gotten very involved in the WG.
· Gets on the documents when it is kind of “too late.”
· Wants to get involved earlier before the details are finalized.

Janet Campbell
· Idea is that one or two people who are really interested in the topic of the document write/s a first draft, then that person sends out to others who have expressed interest in editing. Those people go back and forth with edits until something is written.
· She wrote Deferred Policy Questions mostly from scratch from her own experience. Then she opened the document up to comments, rewrote it, and a focus group finalized it, editing line by line.
· From there the document goes to WG or IG consensus and after the discussion is update to reflect thoughts of anyone outside the process.
· Right now there isn’t a whole lot being written to be able to get involved in something in its earliest stage.
· Would Dragon want to go back on the NHIN Direct Overview?
· The e-mail client configuration guide hasn’t been written.
· SMPT client developers guide and XDD developers guide also need work.

Arien Malec
· Both of those need code to write the guides against.
· Two guides are currently in process, are technical but need good editing.
· On the Java side, need to take the code that is currently written and deploy in developer model or production model.
· HISP to client guide.
· Both are currently being written by developers.

Andy Oram
· -->Ready to take a look and get involved.

Janet Campbell
· Asked Andy if he is on the Reference Implementation WG calls.

Andy Oram
· Answered that he is not.

Janet Campbell
· -->That might be a good place to be because could use a liaison between Documentation WG and Reference Implementation WG.
· Others are also welcome there, but it seems like a good fit for Andy.

Andy Oram
· Java documentation is not very useful for people trying to make use of it.

Arien Malec
· Correct. Some interpretation is needed before you can dive in and use it.

Janet Campbell
· We don’t have a good email list for this WG.
· Karen and Noam aren’t on it.

Arien Malec
· Prefers wiki or other public forum such as a Google group, rather than private email exchange.
-->Should set up a Google group mailing list for the Doc and Testing WG. (ONC Team)

Round the Room: Additional comments or questions

Keith Boone	· No comment.
Noam Arzt	· Is having trouble figuring out where Documentation WG ends and where Communication WG begins. · Joined Communications WG and started to work there. · They are developing written artifacts. · What makes them different? Arien Malec · The difference is the Communications WG artifacts are in PPT. Janet Campbell · Difference is that the Communications WG is trying to use what the Documentation and Testing WG is creating, then transform it for particular audiences. Noam Arzt · The Communications WG items are taking radically different forms. David Tao · They work like the Marketing and Communications division of a company. · Documentation and Testing writes the functional, technical specs and documents, and then the Communications WG repackages it. · If the content is inconsistent, that is a problem. But if it looks different, no big deal. · Are you concerned about the content? Noam Arzt · Yet this WG has come up with an Overview document that isn’t really technical documentation and gets much closer to communicating to a general audience. · Feels like it is on the boundary. David Tao · True but the Communications WG didn’t exist when the Overview document was launched. · There is a mutual understanding between the two groups about what each does and does not do. Janet Campbell · The Communications WG is trying to be very conscious of what the Documentation WG is producing and trying to incorporate the Overview content into their materials. Noam Arzt · All that being said, there are so many subtleties and nuances because no one knows what everything really means. · There is a danger that some meaning is changed, subtly or not, purposefully or not. Janet Campbell · There’s lots of overlap between the two WGs. · They meet different needs.
Andy Oram	· Discussion about the HISPs reminded him of a discussion about the Security Overview and concepts that are still ambiguous. · If there are just some people who don’t understand the concepts, he is OK with that. · But if there are things the larger organization hasn’t pinned down yet, how can either the Documentation or Communications WG do its job in describing the concepts? Janet Campbell · More than anything, this group will uncover those kinds of issues. · Will continue to find these cases and voice concern.
David Tao	· Nothing to add.
Will Ross	· Nothing to add.
Douglass Pratt	· Nothing to add.
Arien Malec	· No additional comment.

Janet Campbell
· Thanks everyone.
Watch for the creation of the Google group to be used for emails.