EAGLES feedback
Because of the very nature of EAGLES, which aims at developing
consensual and broadly agreed common specifications, a large number of
groups active in Europe in the different areas of concern were involved
in building on the results of the major European projects to develop
preliminary specifications or to establish common ground more precisely.
Many of these groups were or are engaged in testing and validating our
preliminary proposals or in elaborating further background material
intended to provide a basis for additional proposals in a second phase
of EAGLES.
From the outset, in EAGLES, there has been a commitment to obtaining
feedback (within the time constraints of the project) from the
wider community on all proposals agreed on by the group.
For this reason, preliminary proposals
of the various EAGLES Working Groups were made public
already at the end of '94.
In addition to the main objective of disseminating and making available the
EAGLES results for wide consultation and application, we remain
committed to the purpose of soliciting feedback, comments,
suggestions and criticism (negative and positive) on
a body of material which represents work that is:
- In some cases still preliminary or in progress;
- In different states of development;
- Not always coherent or harmonised;
- Not complete with respect to known problematic areas.
The reader is therefore requested to take particular note of the nature of
this body of material and to make due allowance. We certainly do
not claim that all the material reaches what is normally thought to be
an acceptable level for general publication. Certain material, for
example, has been only lightly edited or revised, in our concern to
place it before the community in timely fashion for feedback. We are thus
very much aware of inconsistencies, repetitions, lack of cross-references,
differences in style and presentation, etc. The reader should accord
low priority to commenting on such matters.
We are also aware that sometimes
different views of some issue are put forward by different working groups
(or indeed by different members of one subgroup). We see
this as a normal part of the search for consensus. If the reader is
able to contribute in part to helping resolve controversial issues, or can
provide telling reasons to opt for one proposed preference rather than some
other, this would be most welcome.
The reader is thus invited to offer feedback on
content-related issues as
a first priority. We are keen to hear the reader's views on:
- The feasibility and applicability of our current (sometimes
preliminary) proposals;
- The relevance of proposals to your own area of interest and
to the needs and interests of your organisation;
- Whether, in your view, an adequate level of consensus has
been
reached already on some issue, as a result of our proposals;
- What further work needs to be addressed to arrive at a
consensus, if our
proposals are deemed inadequate or incomplete;
- Whether there is any undue bias and, if so, suggestions as
to
how this might be corrected;
- Whether any major or widely-used approaches, theories,
projects,
resources, etc.,
that have not been taken into account so far, should be, {\em only
if
you deem these to be critical to any harmonisation effort} (we
have not
been exhaustive in our descriptions or assessments of projects,
etc., where
these latter merely added weight to our deliberations rather than
any
aspect crucial to overall harmonisation --- moreover, we do not
have the
capacity or mission to effect exhaustive surveys);
- Whether you prefer some proposed approach to another (there
are
cases where, at least within EAGLES, there appears to be no strong
preference for adopting one proposal rather than another);
- Any relevant standardisation or harmonisation activities
that
should be taken into account but have not been;
- Possible terminological infelicities or conceptual
misconceptions;
- What issues you would like to see addressed in another
phase of EAGLES;
- What issues you would like to see addressed by some future
EU standardisation effort.
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