EP Topic News: 18th October 2001

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CONTENTS

WEDELMUSIC 2001
Heritage - collection description
Rights Data Dictionary
Hemera's big box of art
Xara Modules for Frontpage
4th European Data Protection Report
Safer Internet news
XForms resources
First Monday October
Pocket PC 2002
Microsoft Reader 2.0 customers
Trends in online learning
Lifelong learning survey
Virtual education report
eLearning action plan studies

WEDELMUSIC 2001

A brief reminder that the first International Conference on Web Delivering of Music WEDELMUSIC2001, is taking place in Florence, Italy, on 23-24 November 2001. WEDELMUSIC is a project is supported by the IST Programme's Interactive Electronic Publishing Sector, the sponsors of El.pub.

The conference programme promises to cover the full range of techniques and technologies associated with the delivery of music via the web, including: XML format of music, protection aspects, transaction models, digital right management, database for music archives and digital collections, tools for music distribution, mp3, wave, multimedia tools for music fruition, analysis, transposition, watermarking, Braille music, copyrights protection, music education, audio and music sheet digitalisation, and much more. The full programme is published on the web and the proceedings will be published by IEEE Press.

URL: http://www.wedelmusic.org/wedelmusic2001/

Heritage - collection description

Collection Description Focus, based at UKOLN, and CIMI, the Consortium of Cultural Heritage Institutions, are collaborating on a survey of activity in the area of collection-level description. For the purposes of the survey the term "collection" is intended in a very general sense, to mean any aggregation of items, physical or digital.

The aim of this survey is to provide greater understanding of the range of current activity, the descriptive standards in use and the way those standards are being deployed in practice, and to identify areas where further work is required. The survey's organisers are requesting El.pub readers who are involved with organisations or projects that are engaged in resource description at collection-level, to consider completing their questionnaire, which is available via the URL below in both HTML an MS Word formats.

The information may be used by CD Focus and/or CIMI as the basis of analyses that appear in reports and publications, but references to individuals, institutions or projects will not be made without permission. If you supply contact details, CD Focus and/or CIMI may contact you to discuss your work further. A summary of the results of the survey is expected to be published on the CD Focus web site.

URL: questionnaire http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/cd-focus/questionnaire/
URL: Collection Description Focus http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/cd-focus/
Email: Collection Description Focus mailto:cd-focus@ukoln.ac.uk

Rights Data Dictionary

Rightscom the digital rights strategy consultancy has announced the start of the indecs2RDD project which is aiming to develop a framework for a rights data dictionary whose goal is to enhance interoperability in the delivery of protected digital content. The output of the project will result in a submission to MPEG at its meeting scheduled for Thailand in December 2001.

The consortium will be made-up of EDItEUR, the International DOI Foundation (IDF), Accenture, ContentGuard, Enpia Systems, Melodies and Memories Global a subsidiary of Dentsu), the Motion Picture Association (MPA), Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI).

The hope is that the Rights Data Dictionary will create a common data layer of rights terminology and semantics. Software vendors can then map their technology to this standard representation, thus facilitating a wider choice of technologies open for use by rights holders seeking to develop protected delivery of digital content.

URL: Rightscom http://www.rightscom.com/
URL: Accenture http://www.accenture.com/
URL: ContentGuard http://www.contentguard.com/
URL: Dentsu http://www.dentsu.com/
URL: EDItEUR http://www.editeur.org/
URL: Enpia http://www.enpia.com/
URL: IDF http://www.doi.org/
URL: IFPI http://www.ifpi.org/
URL: MPA http://www.mpaa.org/
URL: RIAA http://www.riaa.com/

Hemera's big box of art

Canadian company, Hemera Technologies, suppliers of royalty-free digital image content, have announced that their "Big Box of Art" for both Windows and Macintosh will be available across the UK by mid October 2001. The Big Box of Art for Windows, with an estimated retail price of £29.95, is a digital image collection of over 350,000 images including Hemera's Photo-Objects, clip art, illustrations, professional stock photos, and web graphics. The Big Box of Art for Macintosh has an retail price of £59.95 and contains 215,000 images.

URL: Hemera http://www.hemera.com/

Xara Modules for Frontpage

Microsoft Frontpage users may be interested in the news that Xara Online, providers of modular web services, have released a Microsoft FrontPage Add-In which enables FrontPage users to enhance their web pages with the wide variety of web page add-ons called Xara Modules. Xara Modules are designed to "enable both novices and web professionals to add features into their website including: custom web graphics, animated photos, scrolling text effects, audio streaming, counters, trackers as well the new form, mail list management and database services".

URL: http://www.xaraonline.com/

4th European Data Protection Report

The Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and the free movement of such data has established a Data Protection Working Party. This advisory body which acts independently, draws up an annual report on the state of privacy and data protection. The Fourth Annual Report which provides an overview of all major developments at Community and international level is available on the web.

URL: http://europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/en/dataprot/wpdocs/index.htm

Safer Internet news

The EU Safer Internet programme newsletter, published in pdf format and distributed free via email is based on information from the Safer Internet News Service which aims to provide advice on safer use of Internet, how to report illegal content, current projects and activities, and how to apply for funding. The October 2001 issue includes news and pointers, amongst which are:

• details of the Safer Use of Interactive Technologies workshop, held on 11-12 June, 2001. The final report produced by the European Commission incorporating the findings and reactions to the draft version has been published online.
  URL: http://www.saferinternet.org/resources/reports.asp
• an article which considers the concept of "trusted groups". The article contends that research has suggested that consumers are generally wary of Internet safety messages from governments and businesses and instead put their trust in consumer organisations.
  URL: http://www.saferinternet.org/

XForms resources

Following on from the articles in XML.com on XForms (see El.pub Weekly News 28 September 2001), a list of resources sent to the XML developers list that readers may find of use:

• X-Smiles implements XForms in XSL-FO, SVG and SMIL (Java, Open Source)
  URL: http://www.x-smiles.org/
• ExFormula, an Open Source/Apache XForms project
  URL: http://exformula.sourceforge.net/
• Mozquito XML WebAccess 2.0, a commercial XForms implementation (other resources also available)
  URL: http://www.mozquito.com/

URL: El.pub Weekly News 28 September http://www.elpub.org/base02t0034.htm#ux

First Monday October

The October 2001 issue of First Monday (volume 6, number 10) is now available online. Articles published include:

• "Networks, Netwars, and the Fight for the Future";
• "The Effects of September 11 on the Leading Search Engine";
• "Will E-books Change the World?";
• "Reaching Across the Divide: The Challenges of Using the Internet to Bridge Disparities in Access to Information";
• "Online Journalism: Modelling the First Generation of News Media on the World Wide Web";
• "Changes in Metatag Descriptions Over Time".

URL: http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue6_10/

Pocket PC 2002

At a simultaneous launch in London and San Francisco, Microsoft announced the immediate availability of Pocket PC 2002 software, a new platform designed for the "mobile enterprise arena". According to Microsoft ten major hardware vendors, six mobile operators around 118 software companies have announced support for this new Microsoft Windows-powered platform. According to release notes Pocket PC 2002 software includes support for "802.11, Bluetooth, CDPD, CDMA, and GSM and also ships with the latest version of both Windows Media Player 8.0 enabling Pocket PCs to play music and video clips, and Microsoft Reader 2.0, Microsoft's eBook software".

Compaq and Hewlett-Packard already have devices available based on the software, and Casio, NEC and Toshiba have announced plans to have Pocket PC 2002-based devices available "before the end of the year".

URL: http://www.pocketpc2002press.com/

Microsoft Reader 2.0 customers

Microsoft also took the opportunity at the launch to announce that major UK book retailer, WHSmith, is to begin selling eBooks based on the Microsoft Reader 2.0 format via its web retailing operation, WHSmith.co.uk. Penguin UK, The Random House Group and Little Brown and Company have all announced their intention to provide Microsoft Reader titles for the WHSmith.co.uk eBookstore, as well as other electronic bookstore sites.

Consumers can download Microsoft Reader at no charge from the Microsoft web site. The software is available in five languages: English, French, German, Italian and Spanish.

URL: http://WHSmith.co.uk/
URL: Microsoft Reader download (UK) http://www.microsoft.com/reader/uk
URL: Microsoft Reader download http://www.microsoft.com/reader

Trends in online learning

ProactE News is a European commission sponsored information service which provides good coverage of the emergence of distributed learning trends and technologies. The following a a selection of news items published in the last few editions:

• Lifelong learning survey Cedefop and Eurydice have jointly published a survey called: "National Actions to Implement Lifelong Learning in Europe". This survey is a follow-up of the survey "Lifelong Learning: the Contribution of Education Systems in the Member States of the European Union" and presents a detailed overview of initiatives, implemented in the European Union, to promote lifelong learning. The survey also concentrates on the substantial differences observed in the various countries. Copies of the survey can be obtained for free by contacting Cedefop or Eurydice via e-mail.
  Email: Cedefop mailto:info@cedefop.eu.int
  Email: Eurydice mailto:info@eurydice.org
  URL: ProactE news item http://www.proacte.com/latestnews/viewnews.asp?ID=26271
• The Commonwealth of Learning (COL) has published a report that follows-up the COL's 1999 study on the "virtual" delivery of higher education.
  URL: ProactE news http://www.proacte.com/
  URL: COL report http://www.col.org/virtualed

eLearning action plan studies

The European Commission has published a call for invitation to tender regarding four strategic studies in the eLearning action plan. Further details are available from the URL below.
URL: ProactE news item http://www.proacte.com/latestnews/viewnews.asp?ID=26368
URL: Tender http://europa.eu.int/comm/education/elearning/call.html

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