Standards for Digital Information Interchange. A Resources Page
It is widely acknowledged that data resources which conform to so-called information standards are more readily and more cost effectively moved between hardware and software platforms and between individuals. The selection and application of appropriate standards may accordingly cost-effectively facilitate both access and preservation.
These pages are intended as an initial starting point for those interested in the selection and implementation of appropriate information standards. It recognises firstly that there are different categories of standards which may be required in different combination to facilitate interchange of a particular digital information object.
- Technical standards which facilitate data interchange across networks and between platforms with minimal loss in content and functionality. Such standards include those pertaining to file formats, and compression and encoding techniques.
- Data documentation standards which facilitate data resources management and meaningful interchange between individuals and organisations. Such standards include MARC, Dublin Core, and the CIMI standard.
- Controlled vocabularies and other standards help to ensure that data resources are comparable with other like resources. Such standards include Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules (AACR2), the UK Registrar General's occupational classification scheme, the Getty's Art and Architecture Thesaurus
It recognises secondly that the selection of appropriate standards will be contingent upon the kind of digital object that is being created (standards appropriate for digital images are different than those appropriate for electronic texts or GIS), and upon the uses to which a data resource is intended to be put (imaging standards appropriate for web-delivery of thumbnails are different than those used for archive-quality digital reproductions).
Accordingly, the aims in constructing this page are twofold:
- to provide access to information about particular information interchange standards;
- to provide access to information about best practices defined here as the constellation of technical, documentation, and data standards and of implementation strategies which promise to maximise a resource's intended usefulness while minimising the cost of its creation and subsequent management and use.
Whereas the documentation of particular information interchange is relatively straightforward (as will be seen from these pages, any number of standards bodies fill this purpose very well), the documentation of best practice relies upon the experience of those who have experience in creating and using particular kinds of work of communities who have experience in the creation, management, and use of particular kinds of information objects. The current content of these pages reflects the difficulties involved in collating that experience and consequently fulfil the former objective more fully than the latter. It is hoped that in time and through collaboration with other agencies, these pages may be developed to document best practice more amply than at present.
The organisations listed here provide a useful starting point for research into particular standards and their application. Although many fulfil functions which are also filled by the national standards bodies listed below, they are selected for individual representation because of the breadth, scale, and/or influence of their activities.
The American National Standards Institute facilitates the development of American National Standards (ANSs) by establishing consensus among qualified groups, and is a founding member of the International Standards Organisation (
ISO).
Association for Information and Image Management International (
AIIM).With 9000 individual members and 600 corporate members, AIIM provides "service and leadership for the document management industry" and is: "For end users, the cost-effective way to stay current with document management technologies. For manufacturers, integrators, resellers and consultants, the path to users and potential industry partners. For the document management community, the worldwide home of document imaging and interoperability standards."
Audio Engineering Society (
AES)."Devoted exclusively to audio technology" this professional society's membership consists "of leading engineers, scientists and other authorities". Its
Standards Committee produces
AES Standards in Print including standards for digital audio engineering and preservation of analog and digital audio recording tapes. It also has a new
sub-committee on computer network and file transfer of audio.
The Canadian Standards Association (
CSA) "An independent, non-government, not-for-profit association with headquarters in Toronto, CSA operates internationally through a network of offices and partners across North America and around the world".
Committee T1American National Standards Institute (ANSI) accredited, ATIS (Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions) sponsored Committee T1 to create network interconnections and interoperability standards for the United States. Approved American National Standards of Committee T1 available from
http://www.t1.org/html/standard.htm
European Umbrella Organisation for Geographic Information
EUROGI."Aims to promote, stimulate, encourage and support the development and use of Geographic Information and Technology at the European level and to represent the common interest of the Geographic Information community in Europe".
European Committee for Standardisation (
CEN)Aims to draw up voluntary European Standards and promote corresponding conformity of products and services in areas other than electrotechnical and telecommunications.
Graphic Communications Association
(GCA)"A volunteer non-profit membership association [applying] computer technology to printing, publishing, and related industries. GCA developed and fosters the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML), from which the Extensible Markup Language (XML) and Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) are derived. GCA is a national affiliate and special industry group of Printing Industries of America".
Internet Engineering Task Force (
IETF)A large open international community of network designers, operators, vendors, and researchers concerned with the evolution of the Internet architecture and the smooth operation of the Internet. It is open to any interested individual. " and concerns itself with the development of Internet standards and best practices
International Standards Organization (
ISO)A non-governmental worldwide federation of national standards bodies from 100 countries. Its mission is to promote the development of standardization and related activities in the world with a view to facilitating the international exchange of goods and services, and to developing cooperation in the spheres of intellectual, scientific, technological and economic activity.
Internet Society"A non-profit, non-governmental, international professional membership organization that brings diverse interests and factions together to hammer out reasonable solutions that generate progress and growth for the Internet. Its more than 100 organizational and 7,000 individual members from more than 150 countries represent a veritable who's who of the Internet community... At the technical and developmental level, the Internet is made possible through creation, testing and implementation of Internet Standards. These standards are developed by the
Internet Engineering Task Force (and see above). The standards are then considered by the
Internet Engineering Steering Group..
National Committee for Information Technology Standards (
NCITS)Produces "market-driven, voluntary consensus standards in the areas of: multimedia (MPEG/JPEG), intercommunication among computing devices and information systems, storage media, database, security, and programming languages. Sponsored by the Information Technology Industrial Council (
ITI), NCITS represents the leading companies providing information technology products and services.
National Information Standards Organization (
NISO)A non-profit association accredited as a standards developer by the American National Standards Institute which promotes technical standards used in a wide variety of information. NISO's Voting Members and other supporters include a broad base of information producers and users including libraries, publishers, government agencies, and companies that provide information services. NISO is a leader in shaping international standards and has developed standards for Information Retreival (Z39.50), 12083 (an SGML Tool), Z39.2 (Information Interchange Format), Codes for Languages and Countries, and Z39.18 (Scientific and Technical Reports).
World Wide Web Consortium (
W3C)The W3C was founded in 1994 to develop common protocols for the evolution of the World Wide Web. It is "an international industry consortium, jointly hosted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Laboratory for Computer Science [MIT/LCS] in the United States; the Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique [INRIA] in Europe; and the Keio University Shonan Fujisawa Campus in Asia. Initially, the W3C was established in collaboration with CERN, where the Web originated, with support from DARPA and the European Commission. For details on the joint initiative and the contributions of CERN, INRIA, and MIT, please see the statement on the joint World Wide Web Initiative. Its aims is to work with the global community to produce specifications and reference software that is made freely available throughout the world, and it is active in a variety of areas recommending technical standards and best practices for the web, HTML, architectrues, user interface, metadata.
National standards bodies
Other standards information resource
The Diffuse ProjectAs well as extending the listing of standards and specifications previously provided by OII the new project seeks to provide links to European R&D projects that are seeking to create or influence standards development during the next few years
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