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ICRA Labelling working group: Final Report

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All the objectives set out for the Labelling Working Group have either been met already or can be met during January 2005. A reminder of those objectives:

  1. To analyse the challenges faced by large, complex sites in labelling their content.

    Completed. LWG members have provided invaluable feedback for what is and isn’t practical and have informed the choice of use cases1.

  2. To develop generic tools and techniques that could be used by a wide range of sites The techniques have been developed and will be under review by the wider internet community this month. Basic tools for label generation and testing are well under construction.
  3. To test these tools on existing ICRA member sites to ensure 100% compliance Member companies and others are invited to begin work on this in January 2005.
  4. To distribute and promote the labelling tools and techniques to the wider internet community Promotion of the new techniques has already begun in presentations and online. Work on the more advanced tools will begin in January alongside other developments.
  5. To provide an interim report to the ICRA Board in September and a final report in December This is the final report.

In September, the board approved a number of recommendations that have allowed more detailed work to begin on the new RDF-based labelling techniques. This has been done primarily by a consultant with input from other experts including those at IA Japan, W3C, Vodafone and latterly some of the Quatro partners.

Current situation

During December I expect to be able to publish a draft specification for content labels expressed in RDF/XML2. There are 2 components to this:

  1. The structure of the labels themselves. This supports things like descriptors and modifiers.
  2. The rules for retrieving the correct label for a given URL from a given set of labels.

Once published, we will seek comment on the draft, notably by the Semantic Web community.

NB This is the generic structure for all “labelling.” None of this is specifically about ICRA labels.

As discussed in September, the system will allow labels to be placed in a central location to which content can point. It is possible to point either directly to a label or to a rule-set that then leads to a label.

Already confirmed

Although the detailed structure of the labels and the rule set is still under review, the syntax of the link to those labels, i.e. the bit of code that goes into web pages, server responses etc. is confirmed as:

Please note that the filename given (labels.rdf) is unimportant – any name can be used and the file can be hosted anywhere on the web.

Work can begin now on implementing this tag or its HTTP Response header equivalent without fear of it having to change at a later date.

Quatro

In terms of the technical development, we have reached a useful break point in the work of the LWG and the emphasis is now shifting to the Quatro project. This began officially on 1st November with the kick off meeting held that week.

Having defined the label structure we now need to add in methods of creating trust in those labels. It is anticipated that there will be several different methods available, each will have relevance depending on what the label says. Digital signatures, database look up, real-time analysis and code standards conformance (e.g. is the resource structure suitable for mobile devices) will probably all have a role.

Outside interest

W3C/OMA

At a recent workshop in Barcelona, it was agreed that there is a need for a “Mobile OK” label. This would indicate that a given website or other set of online resources, was structured for display on mobile devices. It’s a perfect use case for Quatro, especially since some or all of the features that determine whether or not a site is Mobile OK can be determined by machine and therefore labels can be backed up by trust-enhancing mechanisms.

JISC

The Joint Information Systems Committee is a UK organisation that promotes the use of ICT in education. They are setting up a quality label mark for educational resources. Again, a perfect use case for Quatro and communication channels are open.

BBB Online/Global Trustmark Alliance

GTA is a new body that has been set up to allow trustmark schemes to cooperate. Needless to say they are interested.

Next steps and indicative time frames

  1. Publish draft schemas for labels and rule sets, seek feedback (Dec)
  2. Express ICRA labels in the new format (using revised vocabulary) (Jan)
  3. Begin to add basic labels to member sites (Jan)
  4. Begin to build more advanced tools to create and read labels (Jan)
  5. Prepare instructions and support material for icra.org (Jan – Mar)
  6. Commission translation work (Mar – Apr)
  7. Publish new website material, labelling vocabulary and RDF/XML labels (Apr – May)

Phil Archer
10 December 2004

Links

1 Quatro project use cases
2 Quatro project technical area

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