International Development Information on the WWW (XML/IDML)
BCS Developing Countries Specialist Group Seminar
2:00pm - 5:30pm, 17th May 1999
In the past the Developing Countries group has been criticised for holding
seminars which lack specific focus and/or a 'technical bent' from an IT/IS
perspective. This announcement outlines a seminar which will be both
highly focussed and will deal with one of the hottest technology subjects
in the informatics world, while at the same time being extremely relevant
to those interested in development information.
It is very likely that most of you reading this notice will at least have
heard of Extensible Markup Language (XML). However, many may be unaware of
its full implications for the future of content on the Internet and indeed
other media, and may be surprised to find that there is already a
reasonably well developed programme to ensure that the 'development
information' community is positioned to take full advantage of the benefits
which XML offers through the International Development Markup Language
(IDML) initiative.
For those who don't know, XML is thought by many commentators to be the
most likely replacement for HTML as the 'lingua franca' of the World Wide
Web. While HTML is a presentation oriented language, XML is a
meta-language which acts as a standard to facilitate exchange of data
between disparate systems. XML is a cut-down version of the SGML standard
and is developed by the WWW Consortium (W3C). In addition to its use in
marking-up 'static' documents, XML can also be used to format output from
databases and many other applications. It is extensible in that custom
tags and vocabularies (structured sets of tags) can be created and shared
by any community of interest. XML also has built-in support for Unicode
which makes translation of output into many international languages much
more straightforward.
The idea of creating a common format for storing and exchanging information
within the 'development' community is not of course new. Some of you will
be aware of initiatives such as the INDIX group's CEFDA, or of IDRC's DDBS
or of HURIDOCS. It would be difficult to argue the case that any of these
initiatives was entirely successful. However, the new context brought
about by the widespread use of the Internet together with a potentially
universal meta-data description standard (XML) are cause for cautious
optimism. It is up to communities such as the 'international development'
community to take advantage of these developments and agree on common ways
forward - this is the essential aim of the IDML initiative.
The seminar will be presented by Hugo Besemer of Wageningen University in
the Netherlands. Hugo has held a variety of posts: as co-ordinator of the
Dutch agricultural documentation network; as an information officer; and is
presently responsible for the development of information products and
electronic publishing in the agricultural university and research centre.
He has been involved in overseas work in a.o. Indonesia, Benin, and several
jobs for PADIS/ECA in Ethiopia. Hugo is active in the IDML initiative and
was present at its first international meeting in Ottawa in Oct'98. He is
co-ordinating the second international meeting in Maastricht in June'99 to
encourage the increased involvement of European partners. Hugo will begin
his presentation with an introduction to XML and related issues such as
DTDs. He will then outline the history and purpose of IDML before
describing its current status and introducing a couple of pilot case studies.
Seminar Details:
The seminar will be held in Room S50 of the St Clements Building of the
London School of Economics (LSE). The building is at the centre of the
LSE's complex on Aldwych, just off The Strand. There are a number of
underground stations nearby including Holborn, Temple and Charing Cross.
You can find detailed information including maps and timetables at the
LSE's excellent Web site - www.lse.ac.uk/School
There will be a small charge of £10 for attendees who are not members of
the BCS.
Background information to the seminar:
As you would expect the subject of XML is given wide coverage on the WWW -
indeed one of the problems is knowing where to begin, searching Alta Vista
for "XML" just returned 800k documents, while "XML" + "Introduction" only
narrowed this to 58k! (27/4/99). The 'reference' site is run by the W3C
consortium and is at - www.w3.org/XML though much of the material is
fairly inaccessible and a more friendly reference site is maintain by the
XML 'commune' at - www.xml.com . If you would like a gentle introduction
to the subject then IBM provide an overview at -
www.software.ibm.com/xml/education/qanda/qanda.html while CNET Builder
answer "20 questions on XML" at - www.builder.com/Authoring/Xml20
Specific background to the IDML initiative can be found at -
www.bellanet.org/xml while the forthcoming Maastricht meeting is
advertised at - www.oneworld.org/owe/projects/idml
Crawford Revie
Senior Lecturer
Department of Information Science
(and Veterinary Informatics and Epidemiology)
University of Strathclyde
Glasgow G1 1XH, SCOTLAND
Telephone (Direct Line) : +44 141 548 3301
Telephone (Office) : +44 141 548 3700/3096
Fax: 0141 553 1393
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
WWW: http://www.dis.strath.ac.uk/people/crawford/
(Acting Chair - BCS Developing Countries Specialist Group)
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