On Wed, 28 Apr 2004, Lorna Campbell wrote:
> Just back from CEN/ISSS in Essen and playing catch up with my mail....
> I see that the dreaded Technical.Format debate has reared it's ugly
> head again while I've been away. I'm still inclined to keep this
> element as mandatory within the UK LOM Core despite Phil's
> reservations. However I agree that this element can cause problems
> when cataloguing resources with multiple mime types. I rather like
> Paul's suggestion of recommending the use of application/X-unknown when
> the relevant MIME types can not be identified for what ever reason. I
> know this is a bit of a kludge but it seems to be a fairly sensible one
> never the less. I have finished the second draft of the UK LOM Core
> and will be circulating it shortly however I would be happy to add
> Paul's suggestion to the guidelines for this element if it would be of
> help. What do other list members think?
It kinda reminds me of the old "This page is intentionally left blank"
nonesense from IBM manuals.
If something is unknown, what's wrong with leaving it blank?
Otherwise we'll end up creating a vocabulary for null-values along the
lines of
unknown
notAvailable
accessDenied
tooComplicated
tooLazyToFillItIn
etc.
etc.
:-)
Andy.
> Bye
> Lorna
>
> On 27 Apr 2004, at 22:08, Paul Hollands wrote:
>
> > Thanks Phil,
> >
> > I agree that in terms of the RLLOMAP removing the mandatory
> > requirement for
> > technical.format would be the most helpful approach so it can be left
> > blank.
> >
> > If that is not possible then maybe we recommend the use of
> > application/X-unknown where
> > no correct MIME type can be discerned.
> >
> > Cheers.
> >
> > On Tue, 27 Apr 2004 21:37:50 +0100, Phil Barker <[log in to unmask]>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> Paul Hollands wrote:
> >>
> >>> Thanks Phil,
> >>>
> >>> Second dumb question:
> >>>
> >>> We also need a way to put an entry in even when the MIME type is
> >>> unknown. I have seen application/unknown used before in brower
> >>> configurations but I have a suspicion this a Microsoft kludge rather
> >>> than an acceptable MIME type. Do you think we should suggest putting
> >>> this into technical.format where it is unclear what the MIME type is
> >>> and
> >>> the cataloguer doesn't have the resources to find out for certain?
> >>>
> >> I can't find application/unknown in the IANA list, so
> >> application/X-unknown
> >> would be a better kludge.
> >>
> >> I have thought in the past of using multipart/mixed, but would not
> >> recmmend this
> >> since technical.format is supposed to list the mime types of all the
> >> parts of a
> >> resource, not the aggregate.
> >>
> >> Leaving the element blank would seem to me to be the best option, if
> >> your
> >> application profile doesn't let you do that then I guess you have the
> >> choice of
> >> either putting in the effort to find out what the mime type is or
> >> trying to
> >> change the application profile. [For what it is worth, I have never
> >> been too
> >> happy about it being mandatory in the UK LOM Core, for the type of
> >> cataloguing I
> >> have been involved in (e.g. of web sites), it has not been easy to
> >> find all the
> >> MIME types involved, and knowing them doesn't help much.]
> >>
> >> Sorry, that probably doesn't help you much :(
> >>
> >> Phil.
> >>
> >> --
> >> Phil Barker Learning Technology Advisor
> >> ICBL, School of Mathematics and Computer Science
> >> Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, EH14 4AS
> >> Tel: work - 0131 451 3278 home - 0131 221 1352
> >> Web: http://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/~philb/
> >
> >
>
> --
> Lorna M. Campbell
> Assistant Director
> Centre for Educational Technology Interoperability Standards (CETIS)
> Centre for Academic Practice, University of Strathclyde
> +44 (0)141 548 3072
> http://www.cetis.ac.uk/
>
Andy
--
Distributed Systems, UKOLN, University of Bath, Bath, BA2 7AY, UK
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/ukoln/staff/a.powell +44 1225 383933
Resource Discovery Network http://www.rdn.ac.uk/
ECDL 2004, Bath, UK - 12-17 Sept 2004 - http://www.ecdl2004.org/
|