8 Glossary

HTML

HTML is the lingua franca for publishing hypertext on the World Wide Web. It is a non-proprietary format based upon SGML, and can be created and processed by a wide range of tools. See W3C (http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/) for more information.

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 (http://www.nzgls.govt.nz/). The standard is based closely on two well-established standards: the Dublin Core (DC) Metadata Element Set and the Australian Government Locator Service (AGLS).

PHP

"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. See (http://www.php.net/) for more information.

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. See W3C (http://www.w3.org/RDF/) for more information.

RSS

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.

URL

The Uniform Resource Locator is the address of a resource, or file, available on the Internet. The URL contains the protocol of the resource (e.g. http:// or ftp://), the domain name for the resource, and the hierarchical name for the file.

XML

Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a simple, very 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 a wide variety of data on the Web and elsewhere. See W3C (http://www.w3.org/XML/) for more information.

XML namespace (xmlns)

In general, a namespace uniquely identifies a set of names so that 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 Web site's address - both because the namespace may be associated with the site or page of that URI (for example, a company name) and because a URI is conveniently likely to be a unique name.