What is a Study Group?

Per SISO-ADM-002-2011 (Policies & Procedures), a Standing Study Group (SSG) may be established to represent a specific community or national group, to mature a potential standard, or potentially to provide support to open-source software. SSGs may have an indefinite life span.

Study Groups are established to consider specific issues and to provide recommendations concerning proposed courses of action. The SISO Study Group mechanism is intended to provide a wide range of flexibility. As examples, the study groups may be formed to define key terminology, recommend modifications to SISO processes, or generate a plan for (or an initial prototype of) a proposed SISO product.  

Each Study Group shall operate under specific Terms of Reference that identify the issues they are being asked to consider and the specific questions they are being asked to address. These Terms of Reference will designate the leadership of the Study Group, the form of the outputs expected, and the time schedule for the generation of these outputs. Appendix B is a template for a Terms of Reference.  

Normally, the life span of a Study Group will not exceed one or two workshop cycles. Depending on the time phasing of the Group's formation, a Study Group will ordinarily conduct an organizational session at one workshop and outbrief at the next workshop.

For more information, see Operations.

Terms of Reference
View SG, SSG, PSG  Terms of Reference (TORs)  in the File Library. The TOR template may be found at Appendix B of the P&P (SISO-ADM-002-2008).
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Study Groups
DDCP SG - Distributed Debrief Control Protocol
The goal of the DDCP Study Group is to evaluate industry and government interest in developing a distributed debrief control protocol standard.  The Study Group will evaluate  the potential for a standards product addressing interoperability...

Game Technology Applied to Modeling and Simulation
Modern games drive the state of the art for both hardware and software development for modeling and simulation. The huge game industry has the potential to expand the modeling and simulation world and enhance its opportunities.

HSCBMS SG - Human Social Culture Behavior (HSCB) Modeling Standards
Transitioned to a Standing Study Group (SSG). HSCB Modeling, a growing area of focus for the M&S community at large, addresses the challenges of modeling human behaviors and organizations from the individual level through higher social and cultural structures. Addressing the individual and organizational human dimension in warfare, homeland defense, crisis management, economics, politics and other social dimensions is arguably the greatest challennge facing M&S today. 

LMS SG - Landscape of M&S Challenges   SG dissolved by EXCOM vote 11 Oct 10 due to lack of community interest.
Organizational meeting held at 2010 Spring SIW. The Landscape of M&S Challenges Study Group evolved from SISO Executive Committee EXCOM work in strategic planning to increase the relevance of SISO to the world’s M&S community.

LVC SG - Live Virtual Constructive Architecture Interoperability   Status under review
The purpose of the LVC Study Group is to explore and discuss issues related to interoperability among Live, Virtual, and Constructive systems. This group operates in parallel with the US DoD's LVC Architecture Roadmap Study...

Mode 5/S IFF SG - Mode 5/Select Identification Friend or Foe
The Mode 5/S IFF Study Group (SG) is established to support the DoD/Joint service/NATO simulation community effort to develop the necessary changes to allow live, virtual and constructive simulations incorporate Mode 5 IFF and Mode S (Select) IFF that is currently in use in Europe.

Message-Sim SG - Message Passing for Simulation-based Collaborative Engineering Design  Work completed. Will be archived.
The Message Passing for Simulation-based Collaborative Engineering Design (Message-Sim) Study Group (SG) was created and sponsored by the SPACE Forum.  Recognizing that HLA, DIS and TENA permit distributed simulation, "the emergence of the Internet and maturation of XML...

MSDBP SG - M&S Development Best Practices SG  Status under review.
The DUSD(A&T) has funded a study by JHU/APL to identify best practices for the development of individual models and simulations. The practices of interest should address, in addition to generally-applicable software development issues, M&S particular considerations...

OOHLA SG - Object-Oriented High Level Architecture Study Group
The OOHLA- SG will operate for one year to investigate which type of working group would best facilitate the development of a standardizable representation of HLA Evolved (HLA 1516-2009) in object-oriented programming languages.

OSI-PDMS SG - Open Source Initiative for Parallel and Distributed M&S  Transitioned to a SSG.
With new affordable desktop computers focusing on multicore processing architectures and current processor speeds reaching an apparent plateau, now is the time for the M&S community to begin focusing on developing interoperability standards for high performance parallel simulation.

RIEDP SG - Reuse and Interoperation of Environmental Data and Processes
The RIEDP Study Group will operate for twelve to eighteen months and will investigate the level of interest and the best approaches for the development and utilization of standardize-able representations of environmental data and processes for use in simulation applications.

SCORM-Sim SG - SCORM - Simulation Interface Standards   Work completed. Will be archived.
One of the important challenges faced by designers and developers of learning, education and training technology is how to integrate simulation-based learning experiences with SCORM environments

TDTP SG - Target Data Transfer Protocol
A Study Group (SG) for the development of a Target Data Transfer Protocol (TDTP) is being initiated.  A ‘target’ is defined in this sense to be any object that a sensor can detect; it includes military and non-military vehicles, through to electricity pylons. 

TEO DSEEP SG - Test & Evaluation Overlay for the Distributed Simulation Engineering & Execution Process
The goals of the TEO-DSEEP are to solicit community input to the preliminary overlay developed by the primary proponents and determine the desirability and feasibility of establishing a PDG to standardize TEO-DSEEP.

UCATT SG - Urban Combat Advanced Training Technologies
The deficiency to perform joint exercises has been identified and discussed by the military user and several NATO Working Groups (FIBUA/MOUT WG, TSWG, …). Due to these discussions the UCATT working group (NMSG WG 063 TG 040) was created to address the subject.
Standing Study Groups
Economics of M&S SSG 
SSG approved 4 Apr 06, under EXCOM oversight. 
The original Economics of Simulation Study Group members continue to receive requests for data and analysis results, and decision makers continue to ask for Economics of M&S information.

Simulation Australia SSG 
SISO SSG - SISO's first International SSG, approved by SISO and SIAA 16 May 2006. First Annual Report approved as SISO-REF-018-2006. The SIAA and SISO established the Australia Standing Study Group (SISO Australia) to liase and inform the Simulation Interoperability Standards Organisation in order to meet the needs of the Australian simulation community.

SCM SSG - Simulation Conceptual Modeling  Transitioned to a PDG Sep '10
SCM SSG transitioned to a PDG Sep 10.
The SCM SSG has transitioned o a PDG. A Product Nomination (PN) was discussed during the 2010 Spring SIW during the SAC Face-to-Face meeting and was subsequently approved by the EXCOM.

PDMS SSG- Parallel and Distributed M&S
OSI-PDMS SG transitioned to PDMS SSG in Mar 09.
As a standing study group, the PDMS-SSG will operate with an open-ended completion date. The PDMS-SSG will conduct a continuous long-term study of vital and high-impact issues relating to parallel and distributed modeling and simulation.