"Standards Are Issued for Digital Labels on Educational Web Pages"

Thought this may be of interest,
Jamal

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   The Chronicle of Higher Education: Articles

   INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
     _________________________________________________________________

   April 10, 1998


   ON LINE

      Standards Are Issued for Digital Labels on Educational Web Pages

   A group of universities and corporations has completed a set of
   digital labels -- known as metatags -- that will make finding
   educational materials on the World-Wide Web easier.

   The tags, invisible to Web users, are designed to be read by advanced
   search engines, so that when people look for educational materials on
   line, the search engines can assemble lists of resources that best
   match the users' needs.

   Officials of EDUCOM, a nationwide consortium of university and
   corporate technology users, posted specifications for the metatags on
   a Web site (http://www.imsproject.org).

   The specifications outline what kinds of information should be
   embedded in the computer code behind both educational Web pages and
   Web-based computer programs.

   A Web page that complies with the specifications will have metatags
   that provide information about the page's contents, who published it,
   its title, and when it became available on line, among other details.
   The metatags could include additional information, such as whether a
   license is required to use a particular computer program.

   The tags also will enable computer companies to build software for
   courses around a common labeling standard, EDUCOM officials said.
     _________________________________________________________________

   Copyright (c) 1998 by The Chronicle of Higher Education
   http://chronicle.com
   Date: 04/10/98
   Section: Information Technology
   Page: A33

Received on Thursday, 9 April 1998 17:02:40 UTC