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Oh Really! 5 Questions With...
[Bob DuCharme]
Jul 2005In each issue, this section presents an interview with someone in the field of content management. In this issue we interview Bob DuCharme from LexisNexis.
| Name: | Bob DuCharme |
| Affiliation: | Lexis-Nexis |
| Title: | Software Engineer |
| Brief Bio: | Bob DuCharme is a consulting software engineer at LexisNexis and an author who has been working with XML and SGML for more than 10 years. He helps to coordinate the use of XML-related standards at LexisNexis, and has worked with the PRISM group for almost 4 years. |
[1] What are some of the most important metadata-related standards publishers should consider adopting?
Bob: The metadata standard that seems to be at the center of everything, because it's so simple and basic, is Dublin Core. I don't
mean to imply that it's simplistic, because there's a very carefully worked-out architecture that you can take advantage of,
but you can get a lot of benefit by using just a few of its elements. Look at how much it's added to RSS.
Some say that Dublin Core's broad applicability makes it too vague, but this is where standards like PRISM come in, by building
on Dublin Core to meet the needs of a particular industry—in PRISM's case, the periodical industry. As a standards group,
IDEAlliance is pretty focused on publishing-related standards, so if you're in the publishing industry their other standards
besides PRISM are worth investigating such as the Digital Image Submission Criteria and Print Properties Committees. Adobe's
XMP looks like a promising way to embed metadata from standards like these and your own arbitrary metadata into a variety
of content formats using RDF. Despite some limitations, XMP is one of the best applications of RDF to be introduced to commercial
production systems that I've seen.
The OASIS XACML standard may also be useful, because while most Digital Rights Managements standards seem more concerned with
preventing unauthorized copying by end-users, XACML has more to offer to B2B relationships in which licensing arrangements
for content in ongoing workflows is a bigger concern than teenagers trying to duplicate each others' DVDs.
[2] What are the benefits publishers can realize by adopting metadata standards?
Bob: In publishing, metadata is very often attached to content for workflow purposes, and the use of standard ways to represent metadata such as an article's author, release date, and licensing information can speed that content's journey through a workflow. Because the periodical industry deals with content that ages quickly, this is an important benefit. Related benefits include greater ease at swapping tools in and out of your workflow—if a tool supports the standards you use, you'll have less configuration work—and an easier time retrieving stored material, because your search criteria is often based on metadata such as a work's author or publication date. The use of standards also makes it easier to exchange your content with business partners, because if your systems are speaking the same language about that content, it's easier to use that content as an asset in a business relationship.
[3] Should publishers that don't license or share content outside their own organization still consider industry standards?
Bob: It's funny how advocates of many standards, particularly the W3C's RDF metadata standard, say that we don't really know the extent of the standard's adoption because much of its use is hidden behind firewalls. Even when the outside world won't see your metadata, the use of standards gives you all the advantages I described previously except for the one about exchanging content with business partners.
[4] What lessons learned can you offer in how to implement and maintain adoption of standards?
Bob: Modularized standards have a lot going for them because you can spread your adoption of them into phases. Another benefit
of modularization is that if the pieces can easily be swapped in and out you can also add your own modules, customizing your
use of the standard for your own needs in a way that should accommodate upgrades to the standard.
Getting involved in standards evolution can cost you some time and money, but it doesn't have to. Putting representatives
on standards groups can be expensive because of all the business travel expenses associated with attending meetings, not to
mention taking your employees away from other work they could be doing for the company. Because standards groups such as the
W3C, OASIS, and IDEAlliance usually make evolving standards available for public comment at some point, you can influence
a standard without joining or attending meetings just by carefully reading an unfinished specification and submitting comments.
The working groups know that it's not exciting reading, and they always appreciate constructive criticism from anyone who
takes the time to pay close attention. This lets you influence standards that matter to your company without investing any
more than your time.
[5] What advice can you give to publishers to help them navigate through numerous standards and make decisions on which to adopt?
Bob: Advocates of specific standards, like people marketing commercial products, want you to believe that their work will solve
any of your problems that have anything to do with what they've done, so they can be vague in describing the benefits in hopes
of reaching a wider audience. The overlap and competition of various standards' usefulness is particularly confusing in the
web services and DRM worlds, because so many participants have dollar signs in their eyes. If you're evaluating a standard
for potential use, start with some use cases that relate to your business and then evaluate the standard in terms of your
use cases. If you have difficulty assembling an application of the standard to your use cases (for example, creating sample
markup that conforms to an XML-based standard and describes your business's metadata), seek out a relevant mailing list for
the standard and ask for help. The amount and quality of help you get will tell you a lot about whether it's worth committing
to that standard.
Also, watch out for royalty issues. Some standards have participants lurking in the shadows who feel that everyone implementing
that standard owes them a "reasonable" royalty payment. As I've learned from being married to an attorney, varying interpretations
of the word "reasonable" can make it a potential trouble spot in any business plans. Any patents associated with a standard
can be real baggage if there's no clear royalty-free agreement about the relationship of those patents and the use of that
patent.
