9 Glossary of key terms

FONZ

Functions of New Zealand thesaurus in NZGLS.

HTML

HTML is the lingua franca for publishing hypertext on the worldwide web. It is a non-proprietary format based upon SGML, and can be created and processed by a wide range of tools. For more information, go to http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/ .

HTTP

The Hypertext Transfer Protocol is the main protocol used for communications between web servers and browsers.

NZGLS

The NZGLS metadata standard is the official New Zealand Government standard for creating discovery-level metadata. The standard is based closely on two well-established standards: the Dublin Core (DC) Metadata Element Set and the Australian Government Locator Service (AGLS).

For more information, go to http://www.nzgls.govt.nz/.

PHP

Hypertext Preprocessor (or Personal Home Page tools) is a scripting language that embeds instructions along with HTML in each page. When a user requests a given page, the web server will execute the instructions and send the results to the user's browser. For more information, go to http://www.php.net/.

RDF

Resource Description Framework is a universal format for data on the web. Using a simple relational model, it allows structured and semi-structured data to be mixed, exported and shared across different applications. For more information, go to http://www.w3.org/RDF/ .

RFC

Request For Comment.

RSS V1.0

RDF Site Summary (or Really Simple Syndication) is a lightweight multipurpose extensible metadata description and syndication format. RSS is an XML application, conforms to the W3C's RDF specification and is extensible via XML-namespace and/or RDF based modularisation.

RSS 0.9x and RSS V2.0

Rich Site Summary is the commonly used acronym for the non RDF/Dublin Core news-feed standard. RSS 0.9x refers to all iterations of RSS after RSS 0.91.

SONZ

Subjects of New Zealand thesaurus in NZGLS.

Syndication

Syndication normally refers to the distribution of articles and photographs to several newspapers or magazines for simultaneous or later publication. RSS has become the de-facto standard for syndicating news and current events on the web. RSS is an extensible XML-based schema that allows the syndication of lists of hyperlinks, along with metadata.

URL and PURL

The Uniform Resource Locator is the address of a resource or file available on the Internet. The URL contains the protocol of the resource (eg: http:// or ftp://), the domain name for the resource, and the hierarchical name for the file. If it is never likely to change it is called a Permanent Uniform Resource Locator (PURL).

XML

Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a simple, flexible text format derived from SGML. Originally designed to meet the challenges of large-scale electronic publishing, XML is also playing an increasingly important role in the exchange of data on the web and elsewhere. For more information, go to: http://www.w3.org/XML/.

XML namespace (xmlns)

In general, a namespace uniquely identifies a set of names so there is no ambiguity when objects having different origins but the same names are mixed together. In XML, a namespace is commonly given the name of a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI), such as a website's address, for two reasons: the namespace may be associated with the site or page of that URI (such as a company name) and because a URI is likely to be a unique name.