Today, the need for digital identity on an Internet-wide basis is bringing us to a similar crossroads. With so many identity protocols, standards, and specifications, will we be able to avoid digital chaos?

Is the digital identity problem really so complex?

Currently, each digital content package has its own media format and content with its own particular twist—no one has yet agreed what should one have as as a unique identifier. A unique identifier is a number or string that is used to identify a specific object. This number or string cannot be used to refer to any other object. For example, an ISBN can be considered a unique identifier for a book. Although a number of books might, for example, be titled Intellectual Property, they can still be differentiated by their unique ISBNs.

According to Wilbert Kraan, who is on staff at the Centre for Educational Technology Interoperability Standards (CETIS):

“The essence of the identifier problem is the reconciliation of the need for identifiers to be the same forever, for everyone, independent of where the resource is, who owns it and in what kind of system it resides in. Not an easy task when the resources—ithe learning objects—are themselves composed of multiple objects, can be changed, have alternative versions, copied and aggregated into, and disaggregated out of, larger learning objects.

Add to that the necessity of maintaining different sets of metadata (and thus metadata identifiers) about the same object for different groups, and you have quite a puzzle.”

The idea of using unique identifiers to manage and track learning objects is extremely attractive. Persistent identifiers, such as Handles, DOIs, and PURLs, offer a superior solution over URLs, which can change easily by being moved. However, the added time and effort needed for their initial development, despite their long-term benefits, seems to have hindered their usage. Economic and cultural factors in education that tend towards a short-term view will have to be overcome if persistent identifiers are to be adopted.

Why do so many identity protocols, standards, and specifications exist? In truth, manufacturers like things to be proprietary. Each wants its own standard. The publishing industry, for example, may require a very robust system with a central authority (e.g. DOI) that guarantees the one and only identifier for a specific object. Such functionality is necessary for the kind of rights management systems they would like to see.

Content and information: what do we want?

• Smart content with inherent information identity – Nine industry-leading organizations have agreed to be the anchor investors in a project, sponsored by the Common Cartridge Alliance, develop a Common Cartridge (CC) format, which defines a commonly supported content format, able to run on any compliant platforms. CC has enable end-users and learning delivery organisations to develop and share community source tools that allow cross platform support, content portability and more effective learning materials.
• Personal identity – The use of identity federationstandards can reduce cost by eliminating the need to scale one-off or proprietary solutions. It can:
  • Increase security and lower rise by enabling an organisation to identify and authenticate a user once, and then use that identity information across multiple systems, including partner web sites.
  • Improve privacy compliance by allowing the user to control what information is shared, or by limited the amount of information shared.
  • Drastically improve the end-user experience by eliminating the need for new account registration through automatic “federated provisioning” or the need to redundantly log in through cross-domain single sign-on.

Leading enterprises around the world have already deployed proprietary identity federation to get closer with partners, improve customer service, accelerate execution of business partnerships and alliances, cut cost and complexity of integrating outsource services, and free themselves from vendor lock-in.But they DO NOT interconnect or federate to enable core value

My good friend Graham Sadd has argued for many years that Personal Identity Management  is the critical objective which seems impossible to achieve. His latest posting on Graham’s Blog makes for interesting reading : Privacy & Trust in the Digital Age

We shouldn’t be surprised: these things always take longer than expected

The world of engineering took seventy-odd years to get to a steady state on some standards—even back then international agreement was poor, countries still competed, and events prevented unity. If commercial gain is part of the debate, it will take longer for countries to adopt digital identity standards. Industry resists de facto standards unless there is a compelling value for all involved. So what must those benefits be?

• Reliable and safe personal identity that the individual can manage and trust, and that the individual can use to access and link to services anytime, anywhere.
• Content that, because of its inherent identity, is digitally smart and can therefore connect you properly to the information you require.

To make progress toward achieving truly reliable personal identity, we must be able to:

• ID the person – The ID owner must be able to self-manage his or her own private and public information, and the managing intermediary must stringently validate (locally, nationally, and internationally) the user’s identity— all personal data must be encrypted and validated by an expert and trusted third party.
• ID the content – Content must be reliably identified. Each digital content package must have an assigned identifier that is unique, which enables us to search and inquire, to find out if the content is what we want, that we are entitled to have it, and that we agree, via an identified transaction, to hold a copy (no back door copies).

Bottom line: we already have the interoperability standards for content and what is needed for a true Internet-wide user identity system. The only hurdle that remains—and this is a big one—is adoption. And one of the key barriers to adoption that must be overcome is finding the kind of intermediary who will behave much like a Swiss bank—one who respects each person’s privacy and always acts on the person’s behalf.

The real ID problem isthe lack of an internet scale, user-focused, cross-domain identity
infrastructure, for people and content.

The absence of a generalized/federated Internet identity standardised solution, i.e the current scenario according to Phil Becker  is to observe content suppliers creating
private silos and walled gardens with localised identity controlling access to
them with little or no content exchangeability between them.  Phil argues
that the large Internet content sites already find themselves in this
position, and have no incentive to organize any other way in the absence of a
better alternative. He asserts that the step change  where silos will crumble and wall gardens will break apart simply cannot happen without first solving the networked
identity problem. Until then, we will only see either one walled garden
replaced with a different one, or a form of virtual entropy destroying the new
Internet constructs.

But……  is it virtual entropy or historically very similar to the emergence of realisable
engineering standards in Victorian times Quote : Phil Becker : Digital World
: The reason is simple & stark : the “engineer’s mind” (versus the “marketer’s mind”) naturally seeks the “perfect solution.” That’s the blessing of the engineer’s mind. It is, of course, also the curse. As any student of technology history knows, the “perfect
solution” has rarely won the battle of the marketplace. Instead, the solution that solved the problem set using “the principle of good enough”, and *also* attained a critical mass of adoption has won. Does that result in further problems to be solved? Of course it does! That, my friends, is the cycle of innovation

How come engineering gets it ?    Historical facts Joseph Whitworth & William Sellers

Joseph Whitworth had proposed a standard screw, and indeed, the British Woolwich Arsenal had been using his Whitworth Screws since 1841 – about 23 years before William Sellers called for a standard for screws. In 1841 he presented a paper before the Institute of Civil Engineers where he introduced his revolutionary thread system. Up to this time no conventions existed for screw threads. During this presentation, Whitworth also introduced a standard system of guages which was widely accepted. Size for size, a
Whitworth thread is stronger than its SAE counterpart. This is partly due to the radiused corners designed into the Whitworth thread which reduces the possibility of a stress riser.

William Sellers didn’t like the shape of the thread of the Whitworth Screw.  It took “three kinds of cutters and two kinds of lathe” to make a Whitworth Screw. Sellers proposed that the thread pyramid should have an angle of 60 degrees . He also proposed that the top of the pyramid be flattened, which is much easier to make than a fancy rounded top. He claimed that his thread would need just one cutter and one lathe – and so be easier, quicker and most importantly, cheaper, to make.         By 1883, the American railroads were the largest corporations in the USA – and practically all of them were using the sellers
screw thread. This forced all the suppliers to those railroads to also use sellers as the  new screw thread.

Whitworth and Sellers :  the big technology adoption event driven by 2nd
world war   

The final chapter re the American thread over the competing
UK Whitworth thread happened because of World War II. In the northern winter of
1941-42, the German tanks of the Panzer Division battled the tanks of the
British 8th Army in Africa. On both sides, the tanks broke down as bolts and
screws wore out and loosened. American factories sent tonnes of bolts and
screws to the battlefront – but they didn’t fit the British tanks. So for the
rest of the war, the American factories had to run two separate lines – one for
British screw threads and one for American screw threads. Everybody agreed that
having screws that didn’t match was a very stupid reason to lose a war, so in
1948, the British agreed to use the Sellers Thread, which by then was already
being called “US Standard”.

Packard  made Rolls Royce engines for US aircraft  “did Packard replicate the British thread system when they built Rolls-Royce Merlins under license during World War II?” The answer is yes; all threads that were used on the Merlin were accurately replicated by Packard. Having said that, however, Packard Merlins used U.S. built Bendix injection carburetors; PD-16 for single stage engines and PD-18 for two stage engines, both of which used U.S. Unified threads. British built Merlins employed S.U. carburetors using
Whitworth threads. The job facing Packard when they undertook manufacture of
the Merlin was daunting to say the least. It’s bad enough having to build a
complex product like the Merlin but exacerbating the situation was the fact no tool
maker in the U.S. made Whitworth taps or dies. Therefore, Packard were forced
into making their own. Although this created a significant hurdle to overcome,
the effort was well worth it, Packard and Rolls-Royce components were
interchangeable.

I recently gave a presentation at the BBC for their Information Architects group on ID and metadata practice : case examples with reference to EIDR : Fran Alexander BBC Taxonomy Manager kindly wrote up the thoughts from the meeting here ID’d for Asset Management http://www.vocabcontrol.com/?m=201101

I have strong feeling that the EIDR service framework is going to have a significant impact see http://eidr.org/

time will tell as always but watch this space as they say

Single Sourcing can significantly improve the way you create, develop and maintain content:

• Increased quality and consistency
• Reduced time
• Reduced cost

Because single sourcing enables you to reassemble documents quickly and easily, you can change your documents to meet new requirements over time.

Simply said : “the right information, at the right time, in the right format, to the right person, at the right cost“

What is single sourcing?

Single sourcing is:

The process of producing multiple outputs from one “single source” of information.

Successful single sourcing allows you to create and maintain one single set of information and yet produce a range of different outputs.

True single sourcing takes into account the differing needs of all of your audiences and the strengths and weaknesses of each of your output media. For example, you may, at the simplest level, want to produce both paper and online Help from a single source. However these two media are very different. Paper is easy on the eye, reflective, high resolution. A computer screen on the other hand is emissive, low resolution, and, as a direct result, tiring and stressful to read from for more than a few minutes at a time. In addition, paper documents are structured linearly and the pages are numbered. Online information is much more anarchic in its structure and allows access at multiple points and topics to be read in various sequences. And we haven’t even got to the differences between audiences!

Benefits of single sourcing

When a piece of information is created, not only must it be written, but it must also be formatted, reviewed and published. When this information is duplicated this production effort is also, to a greater or lesser extent, multiplied. The following table shows some of the ways in which single sourcing addresses this problem:

Thanks to these increases in efficiency, information can be produced both more quickly and to a higher standard. All this talk of automation may lead to some uneasiness in the minds of those currently responsible for producing content. While single sourcing may reduce the overall effort required in the production of information, it could also lead to an increase both in specialisation and skills.

Indeed, communicators of all sorts may find themselves writing, designing, managing or manipulating information across areas of their organisation that have hitherto been outside of their remit

Obstacles to single sourcing

So far so good, but clearly the issues that created problems when we were simply duplicating information have not disappeared. If single sourcing were easy we would have been doing it for years. So what are the obstacles that have kept us cutting, pasting, editing and reformatting for so long?

The problems associated with single sourcing are intimately linked with the benefits mentioned above. Successful single sourcing will, in the long run, free us from manually editing content to suit a range of different outputs. Unfortunately, to achieve the potential gains, and avoid the duplication of effort we may have been used to, we need to create mechanisms that will account for the different media, purposes and audiences that we aim to cater for.

This can be a time-consuming and potentially costly process. It is a process in fact that impinges on each of the areas of information development. The following table shows just some of the areas for concern:

The  need for  user focus

All of these obstacles and changes of roles serve one major purpose: ensuring that single sourcing addresses the needs of users. The aim is to ensure that all outputs are usable and the key is user focus. All parties involved need a clear perception of the needs and limitations of the targeted users.

Each output must be customised to cater as closely as possible for its potential users. If your single sourcing effort is 100% successful then users should receive information as perfect for their use as if it had been written solely for them. Perhaps this goal is unrealistic, but I believe we can get very close. With thought and care it is possible to deal with these obstacles. By adopting the following strategies you can create single sourced information that is customisable to meet the needs of a range of users, diverse media and multiple goals.

Strategies for single sourcing

The required strategies for a successful single sourcing project fall into two categories: analysis and granularity

Analysis

The key to any successful piece of documentation is to analyse the intended audience. This focus on the user’s needs is, if anything, strengthened in a single sourcing environment. As mentioned above, we need to know all about our users. In a single sourcing environment, however, the analysis doesn’t stop here.

Not only do we not have a unified (or at least broadly similar) audience for our information, but we also have users in a range of environments using a range of equipment. To cater for this change in circumstances we need to be better informed on a range of technical issues.

At the simplest level we need to re-acquaint ourselves with the fundamental differences between paper and online formats, but it doesn’t stop there. If we are truly single sourcing then our users will be accessing the information on a range of platforms. You will need to know what the Macintosh equivalent of the Windows key is (or the PC equivalent of the Apple key for Mac users).

The online formats that you produce may also differ: you will very likely need to move beyond Microsoft HTML Help. Content itself may differ: installing software, for example, on a Linux machine may be very different to installing on a PC.

Aside from the technology, you may well need to appreciate the requirements of a broader range of audiences. Training courses can be very similar to user guides but not identical: they are likely to require a greater depth of explanation and the provision of practical exercises. A sales brochure on the other hand may require much higher-level explanations of functionality.

In brief, you need to analyse the following for each output:

§  Who are the users of this information?

§  What do they need to know?

§  On what medium are they viewing the information?

§  For online outputs, or for software documentation:

§  What platform are your users using?

§  What are the limitations and possibilities of this platform?

Once these areas have been examined we can move on to the technique that will provide us with the degree of flexibility needed to make one source of information cater for a wide range of uses and audiences: granularity.

Granularity

To achieve the flexibility required to produce multiple outputs from your single source you need to be able to do three things:

§  Represent a unit of information in more than one way

§  Include or exclude units of information based on output

§  Use a unit of information to carry out more than one function

For single sourcing we need to increase the level of granularity of our information, in other words we need to think about our information in smaller units.

http://www.si.edu/commons/prototype/index.html

Bold statements but with the demise of  BECTA there is real danger that the UK  will lose  momentum in the enablement of ” discovery  of resources for learning” .

The Smithsonian  is showcasing  a step change digital experience, with a new learning model that helps people with their “lifelong learning journeys.” The creation of Smithsonian Commons, a new part of digital presence dedicated to stimulating learning, creation, and innovation through open access to Smithsonian research, collections and communities.

With the Aspect project due to report on federated resource collection and content packaging,  there  is a feeling, as state financial constraints start to bite,  that the UK will fall behind  and rapidly lose its place on this  developing space.

The opportunity exists for the  publishing community, together with the museums to follow the example and make good use of the hard won knowledge and resource in UK. The really difficult question is who is going to drive this ?  and then make it happen …

Vince Cable  .. step up to the plate !!!

The quality criteria are intended as guidelines for the development and evaluation of DLR. The primary application for this document is as a basis for a specification of requirements for procurement, announcing competitive tendering and funding for development projects, as well as a support for developers of DLR.

The criteria have been developed by assignment from the Ministry of Education and Research to the Directorate for Education and Training. The development of the criteria has been led by the Directorate for Education and Training, with assistance from the National Network for IT Research and Competence in Education (ITU) and the National Secretariat for Standardisation of Learning Technology (NSSL).

Althought the debate on crowd sourcing content as learning resources ratlles around  there is still a clear requirement for qualatitive differentiation on resources which have gone through a “genuine” process of review and rating

In social publishing networks people are arguing that self published content is as good as  carefully published and targeted content , and it may be so in some cases,  but just “how do you know ” that.  The argument that all teachers are good creators of content is just not plausible, if we apply the same thinking  to our views on cooks chefs and reataurants.

Not all cooks are good cooks , some cooks are very good , some are extraordinary; they  then tend to be called chefs ” ,  but I would just like to ask all involved here to consider  what Egon Ronay acheived in the world of “good food ” guidance .  At least you were certain that you would get good service and good food .

Egon Ronay  guides gained in popularity very soon after they were started  and it became a mark of distinction to be mentioned in the guides / books.

Many restaurants proudly displayed blue roundels in their window saying “EGON RONAY’S GUIDES” for each year they were listed. The guides made a point of not accepting advertising or hospitality from hotels and restaurants to ensure their impartiality.

So maybe this what we really need to do, get educational resources into a good review framework  guides and get a roundel for producing educational resources work which is of distinction and not just the norm.

The  “Norwegian Quality Criteria ” should be viewed as a an excellent starting  effort .

Rob W

via Graham’s Blog.

A 100+ delegates attended DAM UK 2010, the second in an annual multi-conference global series on Digital Asset Management (DAM) from Henry Stewart Events, held June 30 in London. DAM UK 2010 highlighted the organizational efficiency and cost savings achieved by leading UK organizations in the implementation of DAM, providing both experienced managers and those new to DAM the latest thinking in digital asset management. The attendee list included a diverse group of end users in digital asset management from a wide variety of industries, and leading suppliers of systems and services, industry analysts, consultants and experts in DAM.

“HS DAM events have allowed me to learn about DAM from a number of perspectives – procurement, technical implementation and future trends”

All attendees agreed that the conference was a resounding success, providing feedback that Henry Stewart DAM events continue to present practical, relevant insight to digital asset management from the end user’s perspective. Kunal Patel, Product Manager, TAG, commented that “HS DAM events have allowed me to learn about DAM from a number of perspectives – procurement, technical implementation and future trends”; and Kate Kunac-Tabinor, Head of Design, Oxford University Press added, “HS DAM events are always relevant to where my industry is at.”

Chaired by David Lipsey of FTI Consulting, DAM UK 2010 featured speakers with practical and industry relevant case studies and interactive presentations tailored for experienced DAM managers and those new to DAM. Highlights included panel discussions bringing together industry experts and end users of DAM systems to share their real world experiences

Rob Wilson of RWCS was one of the industry expert speakers at the event

See Speaker link here

HS Dam conference details here :

Digital Identity : The Need for Digital Identifiers Identity in the digital age

Identifiers are everywhere – we use them all the time without being conscious of their role. Some are more obviously identifiers than others (like the name of a colleague at work) and most are public in that they are used beyond a limited scope. Other identifiers are not intended for use outside a prescribed domain and are termed private. Interest in public identifiers has escalated in recent years with the increased awareness of the use of identifiers on the Internet.

One example of a public identifier is the Uniform Resource Locator (URL). These are discoverable using search engines, which use the location-resolving capabilities of the URL to link to documents that match a text query. Using a URL as an identifier ties the resource to its current network location. However it has a critical failing when used as an identifier. When the resource moves from one location to another for whatever reason, the id functionality breaks.

URLs belong to a general class of identification, the Uniform Resource Identifier (URI), which includes location-based identifiers and other schemes that allow the specification of identifier semantics alongside the rules to construct identity characteristic based on location. So, location-based identifiers, such as those described by the http scheme, have a given and particular semantic. As http, this semantic simply consists of ‘what is the resource at this location’. i.e. for any http URI it is possible to locate an item of content by dereferencing the URI using the http protocol.

Dereferencing is the process of taking an identifier and accessing the thing to which the identifier is referring. However, the semantic URL element above is precisely what makes the location-based identifier a poor and unreliable candidate for robust identifier strategies – they identify a location, not a resource, and are hence subject to broken link problems, known as ‘link-rot’

Provision : Achieving Governed Identity

The primary value of a “global persistent digital identifier” is to provide permanence of digital object identification; such an ID should be expected to be globally registered, validated and unique. Persistence in this case refers primarily to the permanence of the identifier and its associated resolution services rather than the permanence of the resource itself.

The move from current compartmentalised systems into an interoperable environment is the central challenge facing digital development this decade. In the quest for a semantic web, new technologies and systems have become available to address a crucial component in the information architectural landscape: Identification. In particular, it is at the data level that interoperability now needs to be advanced.

Public identifiers often become used in ways not anticipated when they are created. So it is critical to note and recognise this characteristic. It is possible to allow for additional uses/services which can be added in a systematic manner. Rather than requiring a prior knowledge about the uses to which an identifier can be put, services can be then be discovered.

In the same way that metadata allows the discovery of resources, identifiers allow the discovery of services (and hence content) available to a particular resource. This service capability is vital to the evolution and increased interoperability of distributed information systems.

Operating an identity provision at the data-level infrastructure of the Internet offers greater potential capability than is commonly used today, particularly to form “bedrock”, upon which a new era of digital services can be built. Significantly, such a data level service infrastructure allows the uncoupling of many important facets of information management: ownership, delivery location and management.

By placing internet identifier management at the heart of systems development and integration, it is possible to build applications that move beyond current compartmentalised restrictions to access externalised services and content.