ILS

Hello all

Charles has recommended that I post to this list (or move to this list) the
discussions about Interoperable Language. Anyone who knows all the beginning
stuff from PF or other lists can scroll down to the "RDF or XML" discussion.

Background:
In view of the anticipated development of symbolic language, translatable
language, impairments in processing ambiguous, non-literal or generally
difficult language, There is a definitive accessibility need for controlled
use of language.

 But, as has been pointed  out, web authors will not like to use one.

So we are developing a standard technique for marking up typical electronic
textual content, and referencing textual content, so that it's meaning
becomes unambiguous, translatable and machine-readable.

Most important. No one needs to change the way that they write. All that you
do is use  the meta data and markup to remove the ambiguity.

So far so good......

How it works:

Basically the idea is that you refer the document to a lexicon, or set of
cascaded lexicons, (so that you can over ride the main lexicon, for
localization, jargon, or just your own usage) You can also over ride a
lexicon in line. In other words you specify the meaning of each word and
phrase in the document. You can use bad to mean good and what ever you like.
You just need to mark it up.

In the document itself  the default the meeting and word usage is the
primary one defined  in the highest priority lexicon. But Language can be
marked up to include more then one meaning or a different meaning.

Content can be marked up with implied content, sarcasm, and other form of
non literal translations.  The priority of text can be identified though
markup, summary of any text can be provided though mark up.


Current progress:

I have put up a draft schema at: http://www.ubaccess.com/ils.html#drafts

SO far it is implemented as XML, The problem or question is, should we be
making this all sing as RDF? (see the next section)

Using the gloss meta data we should have all the pieces in place to link to
the primary lexicon.

(we can also use marking up the schematic relationships to other lexicons to
include them - See http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/XML/#g4_0 )


RDF or XML discussion:

Pro's of XML:

People can start to use the system, (if they can use XML) without tools.
Inline implementation, easy and intuitive.
This schema could be markup for a document (not a lexicon) or a lexicon -
which means that if you have defined some language usage inline in  one
document, you can use that document as a lexicon in other documents.
So in other words, you can mark up a word usage once, inline, and refer to
that language usage in other documents either by referencing it with meta
data or referencing it inline.
Basically once you start using it, you just reference the last document you
did, and all your language usage from previous documents is included. You
only need to reference unusual usage that you have never used before.

Ideally we could extend the xhtml modules to include these elements or
extent XHTML elements to have the included attributes. (but I am not sure
how to do that, Is the XHTML schema modules finished or still at draft
stage? )

 XSL is all the user agent needs to start to impliment usefuly. In other
words - Peaple could use it today.

Pro's of  RDF
Let us assume that no one will use it without tools (that is a big
assumption) - that will invalidate most of the pro XML argument
It really is RDF stuff- it is information about meta data
All we can hope to do in the schema is a best guess as to what we need to
put in.  We know we will want this project to evolve, making RDF is the
right environment.


That's it so far

your comments, suggestions......

All the best,

Lisa Seeman

UnBounded Access

Widen the World Web

http://www.UBaccess.com

Received on Thursday, 1 August 2002 08:49:36 UTC