Standards and Interoperability

1. Standards and Interoperability Kurt Molholm kmolholm@aol.com or kurt@molholm.com

2. Standards • Historically, the range of hardware, software, and platform products from different vendors made it difficult or impossible for to share data effectively. • Software standards help enable software to interoperate. • Interoperability is not the same as standards. • Interoperability does not assure access

3. Proprietary (de facto) standards Evolve from a product line or specific vendor De facto standards are widely accepted and used, but lack formal approval by a recognized standards organization. PDF/Adobe Acrobat and PostScript are examples of de facto standards. Open (de jure) standards Publicly available specifications Developed and adopted by some authorized standardization body, e.g. ISO/NISO/ANSI WWW Consortium Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Types of IT Standards The objective of open standards is to create an environment for interoperability.

4. Interoperability • The ability of software and hardware on different machines from different vendors to share data. • Source:www.webopedia.com • The ability of two or more systems, or components to exchange information, and to use the information that has been exchanged • Source: www.globalvoice.com/index.asp

5. The Information Continuum • In thisnew information age, knowledge is changing too fast. Not only isnew knowledgeand information being produced, butold knowledgeis being reinterpreted and repackaged formore and varied purposes. • Accessing, evaluating and using information from avariety of sourceshas become a skill in itself for the user • This has put aheavy pressure on providers of informationto deliver the right information at the right time and the right scale to the right person. • THE GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH CENTER

6. The Raison d'être - Putting Knowledge to Work - Scientific Data and Information • Factual inputs, data, models, analyses, technical information, or scientific assessmentsrelated to such scientific and engineering disciplines . • This includesany communication or representation of knowledgesuch as facts or data,in any medium or form, including textual, numerical, graphic, cartographic, narrative, or audiovisual forms. Data and Information are essential building blocks of science --- Transfer of Information and Knowledge is Essential

7. Considerations

8. Metadata and Information Discovery • Metadata - Commonly divided into • descriptive metadata • structural metadata • administrative metadata • Discovery - General term covering all strategies and methods of finding information in a digital library. • Source:www.cs.cornell.edu/wya/DigLib/MS1999/glossary.html However, the Internet is not yet a Library!

9. Metadata and Information Discovery • Forms of Digital Objects • Audio: Recorded or broadcast sound, including speech, music, animal calls, nature sounds, synthesized sounds, and noise. • Text: Printed or handwritten material accessible to the naked eye. • Visual Material - Motion: Moving visual images, possibly accompanied by a sound track. Includes motion video and animation. • Visual Material - Non-motion: Any static visual material, including still photographs, prints, drawings, posters, atlases, and raster maps. • Numeric Material:Significant numeric content, either statistical, coded, or graphically displayed

10. Persistence and Presentation • Persistence • There is a need for Bits and bytes to be labeled or referenced in such a way that they can be reliably found over time. • Global uniqueness. The same identifier will never be assigned to two different resources. • Support distributed naming and resolution. • Must support both tangible and intangible objects. • Presentation • Traditional Paper and Ink • Digital Formats • Multimedia

11. Maintenance and Preservation • Maintenance - • Permit changes (e.g. errata) • Version Control • Preservation - • Attempt to ensure long-term presentation • Attempt to ensure long-term discovery and access

12. Standards, Guidelines, and so forth

13. Metadata • ISO 10646 and Unicode - In 1991, the ISO Working Group responsible for ISO/IEC 10646 (JTC 1/SC 2/WG 2) and the Unicode Consortium decided to create one universal standard for coding multilingual text. Unicode Standard identifies the corresponding version of ISO/IEC 10646. Start with http://www.unicode.org/versions/ • The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative - an open forum engaged in the development of interoperable online metadata standards

14. Metadata • A scientific data repository should allow metadata searching. Examples • US Federal Geographic Data Committee approved the Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadatawww.fgdc.gov/metadata/metadata.html • indecs> Data Dictionary (Digital Object Indentifier - DOI Related). (Scientific data sets may be identified by DOIs, and several efforts are now underway in this area)

15. Search, Discovery, & Access • Search the Web on your own using: • Local Sources and Personal Bookmarks • Search Engines such as Google, Yahoo • Search the Web using Portals and Meta Search Engines (content through one single interface)examples: • MetaSearch engines such as Dogpile, Vivísimo, CSA Illumina Multisearch, Elsevier’s Scirus • Directory of Open Access Journals - A service that covers free, full text, quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals http://www.doaj.org/

16. Search, Discovery, & Access • Portals and Meta Search Engines examples cont.: • CODATA/ICSTI Prototype Portal on Permanent Access to Scientific Data and Information http://www.nap.edu/shelves/codata/index.html • Science.gov - a gateway to authoritative selected science information of U.S. Government agencies. http://www.science.gov/ • Online JOurnals Search Enginewww.ojose.com Note: , SearchEngineWatch,Science Search Engines is a good reference source

17. Search, Discovery, & Access • Community of Science search engine to find home pages and contact addresses for scientists. • ISI Web of Knowledge • Elsevier • ScienceDirect • Engineering Information • Engineering Village 2 • ChemVillage • CAS SciFinder • FAOSTATan on-line and multilingual database currently containing time-series records covering international statistics

18. Search, Discovery, & Access • Enterprise Servers - collectively serve the needs of an enterpriserather than a single user. • MarkLogic’s XML Content Server • IXIASOFT’s TEXTML Server XML Content Server

19. Persistence • Uniform Resource Name - URNs are persistent and unique identifiers of Internet documents. URNs are globally unique, persistent, and accessible over the network. • Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) a compact sequence of characters that identifies an abstract or physical resource.

20. Persistence • ARK (Archival Resource Key) is a system primarily designed for custodians of archived digital objects • The Handle System generally conforms with the URN framework. The DOI system of unique identifiers is based on the Handle System • Persistent Uniform Resource Locator (PURL) was developed and implemented by OCLC. Intended as an interim system to be used until the URN framework is well established. • Source: The National Library of Australia's Preserving Access to Digital Information (PADI)

21. Presentation • Traditional Paper and Ink (Meta-) Markup Languages -"meta" languages because they are used for defining markup languages. • SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language) ISO 8879:1986 • HTML(HyperText Markup Language) • XML(eXtensible Markup Language - ISO 15022). XML has been designed for ease of implementation and for interoperability with both SGML and HTML.Flynn, P (Ed.), The XML FAQ v.4.41, Cork, 2006-01-07, http://xml.silmaril.ie/

22. Presentation • Paper - PDF/Adobe Acrobat, Word • Digital Format See ISO Committee JTC 1/SC 29 “Coding of audio, picture, multimedia and hypermedia information” • Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) ISO 11172 • Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) and JPEG File Interchange Format (JFIF) ISO/IEC 15444-12:2005 http://www.jpeg.org/index.html • Graphic Interchange Format (GIF) can be displayed on almost all web browsers • Real Audio - a proprietary audio format

23. Maintenance & Preservation • Access Control • Intellectual Property Notices • Handles System • Open Archival Information System (OAIS) Reference Model (ISO 14721:2003) • XML (ISO 15022) • URL/URI systems • Version Control • Z39.50 (ISO 23950:1998) Presentation software

24. Conclusion • “the beauty of standards is that there are so many to choose from” • Interoperability is not the same as standards. • Interoperability does not assure access • TheInformation Continuummeans considering both thenear-term and the long-termANDmultiple presentation forms • “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it is not half so bad as a lot of ignorance.” Terry Pratchett, “Equal Rites”

25. Information and Knowledge Transfer Is the Raison d'être • Wisdom is the result of learning and using knowledge for a strategic advantage. After gaining knowledge, wisdom is used to meet new situations. Wisdom resides in the minds of the users. • Stuhlman Management Consultants, Knowledge Management Terms • Knowledge can be conveyed, but not wisdom. • Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

26. Contact kmolholm@aol.com or kurt@molholm.com