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IDEAlliance standards update
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Abstract
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Contents
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The work of IDEAlliance
IDEAlliance, the International Digital Enterprise Alliance, was established
in 1999 by GCA as a vendor-neutral, non-profit research and development center
for both vertical and cross-industry e-Business standards development. Its
mission is to foster the development of interoperability applications and
systems by providing comprehensive technical, administrative, promotional,
and educational support to working groups engaged in developing industry-specific
applications of open information standards
IDEAlliance is the logical next step in an evolutionary process that
began over thirty years ago with the creation of GCA to introduce computer
technologies to the printing and publishing industries...then through the
creation of GCARI, the GCA Research Institute, as the focal point for EDI
and e-Business standards development and promotion...to today, where IDEAlliance
works with a broad spectrum of XML and e- Business users, vendors, and standards
bodies to build, promote, and propagate the use of leading-edge e-Business
technologies. IDEAlliance continues to evolve well beyond its predecessor,
GCARI, in the scope and breadth of the services it offers and the industries
it supports.
The current member groups of IDEAlliance include:
PRISM
PRISM, Publishing Requirements for Industry Standard Metadata, an initiative
to develop a standard XML metadata vocabulary for the magazine and catalog
publishing industry. There will be an immediate impact on real, revenue-based
business goals in the publishing industry when this is completed. Publishers
will be able to exchange content over the web using standard communication
protocols such as ICE (see below). Users and managers of aggregation sites
will be able to find and update content more easily and reliably, publishers
will have a standard and extensible way to manage re-use of information across
their own publications, and vendors will be able to incorporate support for
this vocabulary into their software products to provide off-the-shelf tools.
The companies active on the working group represent a broad mix of vendors
and users, including Cahners, Conde Nast, Time Inc., DataFusion, Wavo, Quark,
Getty Images, Artesia, and more. Together, this team has achieved some significant
accomplishments, including an exceptionally successful interoperability demonstration
at the Seybold Boston conference last February. This demonstration consisted
of a rich set of scenarios including both vendors and content providers that
showed just how the use of PRISM can greatly simplify and enhance the repurposing
and aggregation of news, information, and entertainment. Version 1 of the
PRISM specification is scheduled to be released by mid-2000.
ICE
ICE, Information and Content Exchange, is a standard protocol for the
server-to-server exchange of digital assets between networked partners and
affiliates. Applications based on ICE enable companies to easily construct
syndicated publishing networks, Web superstores, and on-line reseller channels
by establishing Web site to Web site information networks.
For example, a news and information Web site could license content from
multiple news services, using ICE-enabled products to manage the exchange
and updates of the information. A manufacturer could build an on-line reseller
network for its products by allowing its on-line distributors to automatically
integrate product and pricing information from the company's centralized Web
site. And there are many other applications as well.
The working group that developed ICE is called the ICE Authoring Group.
This is a customer-driven team with broad representation from both content
users and providers to ensure the viability of ICE. Members include Vignette,
Adobe, Sotheby's, Kinecta, Microsoft, Wavo, What U Want, Inc., RNCi, and more.
In addition, the Authoring Group works with the ICE Advisory Council, a diverse
membership organization that helps the Authoring Group by evaluating changes
to the protocol and providing feedback directly to the group.
ICE version 1.0 has been published as a W3C note and can be found on
the W3C web site. The Authoring Group has completed Version 1.1, which has
also been submitted to the W3C. The team is also putting together a reference
implementation, called RICE (Reference implementation for ICE) that will be
ready for beta in the third quarter this year. This will be a set of libraries
and test harnesses that software providers can plug into their products to
provide ICE capabilities.
CPExchange Network
The CPExchange Network (Customer Profile Exchange) is a privacy-enabled,
XML-based standard for the exchange of customer profile information among
enterprise applications and partners. CPExchange (formerly CPEX) gives organizations
a way to share a common image of the customer across business units like sales,
customer support and order management. This can include the customers' identities,
behaviors and needs. It can also be used to provide the same benefits to an
entire supply chain.
A key component of CPExchange protocol is a rich set of privacy safeguards
that allow the customers themselves to specify the degree of privacy that
should be applied to their data. From then on, these protections travel with
the data to ensure that the customers' needs are met.
Members of the CPExchange Network enjoy a variety of benefits, not the
least of which is the opportunity to review drafts of the specification as
it's being developed and to provide feedback directly to the CPExchange Working
Group. There are currently over 50 member organizations of the CPExchange
Network, including more than 30 Working Group members.
The CPExchange Working Group has completed its data model and compiled
a rich set of use case scenarios that is driving the requirements for the
specification. The first release of the CPExchange specification is scheduled
for release this summer.
Topic Maps
Topic Maps are documents that describe what an information set is about,
by formally declaring topics, and by linking the relevant parts of the information
set to the appropriate topics. It's an international standard for organizing
and providing access to large information sets.
The original idea for the application of HyTime that we today know as
Topic Maps was developed by a working group of the GCA's Research Institute,
known today as IDEAlliance. Topic Maps moved from GCARI to the ISO arena and
last year was released as an official International Standard. All along the
way, GCA and now IDEAlliance have supported the activity through tutorials,
conferences, and technology demonstrations.
Topicmaps.org, also known as XTM (XML Topic Maps) is a recent IDEAlliance
initiative to apply the same concepts to the Web. Today's Web is just a maze
of one-to-one, static links. The topicmaps.org specification will show how
to create organized, indexed hubs of information for the Web. XTM will provide
a way to specify the information navigation in a formal way. It enables one
to many or many to many links.
ISO 12083
IDEAlliance is also the host organization for the ISO 12083 Working
Group. This specification provides additional flexibility to support the publication
of scholarly documents. The working group is currently revising the standard
to migrate from an SGML platform to XML.
IDEA-ICC
Last, but certainly not least, IDEAlliance is the host for the Independent
Consultants Cooperative (IDEA-ICC). This is a group of independent experts
in SGML, XML, the Internet, and E-Business. They bring a broad variety of
specialties to IDEAlliance and its member organizations. They are a perfect
fit with IDEAlliance's focus on user-driven standards because they have a
such a long and proven track record in providing expert services to users
in a variety of industries, and they bring their vast and diverse knowledge
and experience to bear for the benefit of IDEAlliance member organizations.
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Table of Contents
Summary
In just a few short months since its formal launch at GCA's XML '99
conference in Philadelphia, IDEAlliance has established itself as a leader
in the development of open interoperability and structured information standards.
IDEAlliance's success is due, in no small way, to its credibility as an open-process,
vendor neutral, user-driven organization. This, combined with a long history
of leadership and expertise through IDEAlliance's parent, GCA, and it's predecessor,
GCARI, ensure that IDEAlliance will be able to continue to meet the changing
needs of the e-Business community.