DigRepStandards-AllStandards
From DigiRepWiki
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Full Document
This page provides access to all of the standards mentioned in a single file.
Key Standards For The Digital Repositories Programme
This section provides access to the standards which are of direct relevance to the Digital Repositories Programme.
Key Standards
Other Relevant Standards For The Digital Repositories Programme
This section provides access to the standards which are likely to be of relevance to the Digital Repositories Programme. These are:
Web Standards
The section covers standards for Web sites including HTML, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), and DOM (Document Object Model).
HTML / XHTML
Standard: HTML
About the Standards: HTML is the native Web format for the Web. HTML describes the structure of native Web documents.
Version: At the time of writing (27 July 2005) the recommended versions of HTML are HTML 4 and XHTML 1.
Maturity: HTML is a mature format, with many authoring tools available and a wide understanding of the technologies. (XHTML 1.1 is the latest version and is widely supported.)
Risk Assessment: Historically HTML provided both structural and formatting elements and many tools still support this approach. Use of CSS has, in the past, been hindered by poor support in browsers, although simple techniques are now available for overcoming such barriers. However inertia, investment in legacy authoring tools or a lack of awareness of current best practices may hinder deployment of HTML and CSS with corresponding difficulties in maximising accessibility and interoperability.
In addition there is a need to ensure documents using HTML comply with appropriate standards. There will be a need to deploy appropriate QA techniques to ensure that this is the case.
Also note that there are some minor issues concerning the MIME type to be used with XHTML 1 resources. In practice, however, there is a widespread, but not universal, view that the same MIME type can be used for both HTML and XHTML 1 resources.
SOA Role:
Further Information:
- Hypertext Markup Language 4.01], PRONOM, <http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/PRONOM/Format/proFormatSearch.asp?status=detailReport&id=642>
- Extensible Hypertext Markup Language 1.1, PRONOM, <http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/PRONOM/Format/proFormatSearch.asp?status=detailReport&id=644>
- HyperText Markup Language (HTML) Home Page, W3C, <http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/>
- Advice on HTML, CSS and related technologies, QA Focus briefing documents, UKOLN, <http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/qa-focus/documents/briefings/#access>
- HTML, Wikipedia, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Html>
Author: Brian Kelly, UKOLN
Contributor:
Date Created: 1 June 2005
Update History:
CSS
Standard: CSS (Cascading Stylesheets).
About the Standard: CSS Cascading Stylesheets) is the recommended technology for describing the appearance of HTML documents.
Version: At the time of writing (1 June 2005) the recommended version of CSS is CSS 2.
Maturity: CSS is a mature format, with many authoring tools available and a wide understanding of the technology.
Risk Assessment: Historically use of CSS has, in the past, been hindered by poor support in browsers, although simple techniques are now available for overcoming such barriers. However inertia, investment in legacy authoring tools or a lack of awareness of current best practices may hinder deployment of HTML and CSS with corresponding difficulties in maximising accessibility and interoperability. In addition there is a need to ensure documents using CSS comply with appropriate standards. There will be a need to deploy appropriate QA techniques to ensure that this is the case.
SOA Role:
Further Information:
- Cascading Style Sheets, W3C, <http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/>
- W3C Cascading Style Sheets, Cover Pages, <http://xml.coverpages.org/css.html>
- Advice on HTML, CSS and related technologies, QA Focus briefing documents, UKOLN, <http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/qa-focus/documents/briefings/#access>
- Cascading Style Sheets, Wikipedia, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascading_Style_Sheets>
Author: Brian Kelly, UKOLN
Contributors:
Date Created: 27 July 2005
Update History:
DOM
Standard: DOM (Document Object Model)
About the Standard: The DOM (Document Object Model) is a platform- and language-neutral interface for Web resources (such as HTML and XML) that allows programs and scripts to dynamically access and update the content, structure and style of documents.
Version: Level 3 of various components of the DOM is the latest version.
Maturity: The DOM is widely used to provide interaction in Web pages.
Risk Assessment: There may be inconsistent support for DOM across various Web browsers and JavaScript implementations. There will be a need for testing across browser environments. Also note that support for the DOM may be disabled if users (or institutions) disable JavaScript support).
SOA Role:
Further Information:
- Document Object Model (DOM), W3C, <http://www.w3.org/DOM/>
- Document Object Model, Wikipedia, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Document_Object_Model>
Author: Brian Kelly, UKOLN
Contributors:
Date Created: 22 July 2005
Update History:
Alerting Standards
The section covers alerting standards including RSS, Atom and OPML.
RSS
Standard: RSS is a widely used standard for news feeds and content syndication.
About the Standard: RSS provides a simple mechanism by which news can be described and made available. RSS alerts can be easily embedded in Web pages, aggregated by RSS aggregation tools, viewed in dedicated RSS readers, etc.
Version: Confusingly the term 'RSS' covers two separate formats. In RSS 1.0 the term standards for RDF Site Summary whereas in 'RSS 2.0' (which is a different, and not later, version to RSS 1.0) RSS standards for Really Simple Syndication.
Maturity: RSS is widely used, is simple to create and is a very powerful technology.
Risk Assessment: The competing approaches and confusion in the terminology can result in an inappropriate version of RSS being used. At present RSS readers can normally process both versions, but this may not be the case in future.
SOA Role: Alerting.
Further Information:
- Really Simple Syndication, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Really_Simple_Syndication>, Wikipedia
- RDF Site Summary, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RDF_Site_Summary>, Wikipedia
- RSS (file format), <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_(file_format)>, Wikipedia
- An Introduction To RSS And News Feeds, <http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/qa-focus/documents/briefings/briefing-77/>, QA Focus briefing document, UKOLN
Author: Brian Kelly, UKOLN
Contributor:
Date Created: 1 June 2005
Update History:
Atom
Standard: Atom is an XML-based document format for the syndication of Web content such as Weblogs and news headlines.
About the Standard: Atom was developed as a replacement for the RSS famliy of standards for news syndication.
Version: version 1.0.
Maturity: Atom is widely used, is simple to create and is a very powerful technology.
Risk Assessment: Atom and the various versions of RSS provide related functionality.
SOA Role: Alerting.
Further Information:
- IETF Atom Publishing Format and Protocol working group (atompub), IETF, <http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/atompub-charter.html>
- RFC 4287, IETF, <http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4287.txt>
- Atom (standard), Wikipedia, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom_(standard)>
Author: Brian Kelly, UKOLN
Contributor:
Date Created: 3 Feb 2006
Update History:
OPML
Standard: OPML (Outline Processor Markup Language).
About the Standard: OPML (Outline Processor Markup Language) is a format which can be used for managing groups of RSS feeds.
Version: Not known
Maturity: RSS appears to be the main mechanism used for importing and exporting RSS feeds between RSS readers.
Risk Assessment: OPML was developed by Davey Winer. The format has not been adopted by a formal open standards body. However, in practice, developers of RSS tools appear to have accepted OPML as an industry standard.
SOA Role: Alerting.
Further Information:
- Outline Processor Markup Language, OPML.org, <http://www.opml.org/>
- OPML, Wikipedia, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPML>
Author: Brian Kelly, UKOLN
Contributor:
Date Created: 21 July 2005
Other Standards WHich May Be Of Relevence To The Digital Repositories Programme
This section provides access to the standards which may be be of relevance to the Digital Repositories Programme.
