XML: Modeling Data and Metadata
Rohit Khare & Adam Rifkin, 4K Associates
Presentations
Registration
This tutorial will be presented on Sunday morning, November 15, 1998 at the Westin Seattle as part of ACM CSCW'98.
Goals & Objectives
Designers of Computer-Supported Cooperative Work systems have long
sought a portable information delivery format to share
knowledge. Extensible Markup Language (XML) provides an effective
solution for communicating across time, space, and communities. First,
when recording a data structure for future reuse, XML format storage
is self-descriptive enough to extract its schema and verify its
validity. Second, when transferring data structures between different
machines, XML's link model in conjunction with Web transport protocols
reduces the burden of marshaling entire data sets. Third, when sharing
collaborative data structures between disparate communities, it is
easier to compose new systems and convert data definitions to the
degree that XML documents are well-adapted to the Web.
Intense market interest in Web publishing has imparted considerable
momentum to XML and its entire family of related specifications -- not
just for modeling documents, but meta-data as well. To date, there are
efforts to exchange XML-based metadata for authoring and versioning,
content-rating, searching and indexing, content rating, XML grammars
and more. Many are based on the generic Resource Description Framework
(RDF) under development at the World Wide Web Consortium or on
proposals for XML Schemas such as XML-Data.
This tutorial introduces the family of Extensible Markup Language
specifications to CSCW researchers and practitioners: XML, Namespaces,
XML Stylesheet Language (XSL), XLink, XPointer, RDF (Resource Description Framework), and
Schemas, as well as its interaction with other Web standards such as
HTML, CSS, URI, and HTTP.
Content & Activities
This tutorial is structured around several presentations on aspects of
the Extensible Markup Language interspersed with interactive Q&A and
design walkthroughs of bibliographic citations, memos, and a scenario
offered by participants.
- What XML is (and is not!)
- The Evolution of XML and The Origin of (Document) Species
- Designing and Reusing Document Type Definitions
- Automating Web-based Applications with XML
- Arguments and Techniques for Capturing the State of Distributed Systems in XML
- State-of-the-Art of XML-based Metadata Formats: RDF and Schemas
- Experience with CSCW Applications: WebDAV (HTTP Extensions for Distributed Aut
horing and Versioning) and Endeavors (exchanging workflow process models)
Audience
This session is intended for CSCW developers evaluating the XML family
of standards. No prior knowledge of markup languages, metadata
systems, or knowledge representation is assumed, though broad
familiarity with Web technologies is helpful.
Qualifications
Rohit Khare joined the Ph.D. program in computer science at the
University of California, Irvine in Fall 1997 to focus on the
development of Internet application protocols and standardization. He
was previously on the technical staff of the World Wide Web Consortium
at MIT and later at MCI Internet Architecture, as well as serving as
editor-in-chief of the World Wide Web Journal at O'Reilly &
Associates. Rohit received a B.S. in Engineering and Applied Science
and in Economics from California Institute of Technology in 1995.
Adam Rifkin received his B.S. and M.S. in Computer Science from the
College of William and Mary. He is presently pursuing a Ph.D. in
computer science at the California Institute of Technology, where he
works with the Caltech Infospheres Project on the composition of
distributed active objects. His efforts with Infospheres have won best
paper awards both at the Fifth IEEE International Symposium on High
Performance Distributed Computing and at the Thirtieth Hawaii
International Conference on System Sciences. He has performed research
and consulting for organizations such as Microsoft Research, Canon,
Hewlett-Packard, Griffiss Air Force Base, and the NASA-Langley
Research Center.
Together, they have authored several papers on the origins,
applications, and implications of XML which are available at
http://www.cs.caltech.edu/~adam/papers/xml.
Copyright 1998, 4K Associates. All rights
reserved. May be used only for educational and personal purposes
without written consent of the authors.