Role - an adaptation metadata/annotation

[Rotan Hanrahan <Ro...@MobileAware.com>]

This is just a quick update on some W3C work I've been doing recently.
(See: http://www.w3.org/2004/06/DI-MCA-WS/)
 
We were looking for metadata concepts that would be useful in the
adaptation of web content for multiple devices. The diverse group of
participants agreed a few points; one in particular may be of interest
to Beehive.
 
It was agreed that a web page could include metadata marking subsets of
the document according to the "role" that is played by that subset. A
number of technologies for implementing such a mechanism have been
considered (OWL, RDF and other SemWeb concepts), but obviously it could
be "a while" before this is translated into a tangible proposal.
 
However, it occurred to me that if a Beehive control, responsible for
the generation of a subset of the web page, could be annotated with the
same ontology applied to "role" then that control could also express
the metadata (e.g. as embedded RDF) to facilitate subsequent adaptation
of that content.
 
Simple example: a control that generates the main menu of the page
would not only generate the markup but would also generate embedded RDF
to indicate that the markup was in fact the "main menu" and not some
random/unrelated collection of links. This information might later be
used by content adaptation (e.g. client-side) to reposition the main
menu for a different device/browser.
 
Getting such an idea into the mainstream could take a long time, but
the existence of a respected software platform capable of supporting
such a concept might help oil the wheels of standardization bodies...
 
I will be updating the W3C workshop pages over the next few weeks.
 
---Rotan

Re: Role - an adaptation metadata/annotation

[Richard Feit <ri...@bea.com>]

This is an interesting idea.  Currently, there's never a control that's 
wholly responsible for rendering a piece of UI (at least that's not the 
typical pattern).  Often there's a control involved upstream in 
providing data to back the UI, but in the end the NetUI tags in a JSP 
are the final word.  Seems like in this case, RDF-type information would 
still be embedded in the JSP using the same mechanism that evolves for 
web pages in general.  I can actually see where this might fit better 
with technology like JSF, where there are actual UI component classes 
that could be annotated in the way you're suggesting.

That said, I think it would be great for us to look at standardized 
semantic metadata across the board (web services, controls, UI).  If 
you've got ideas for how this metadata would propagate from the control 
layer to the UI, I'd definitely be interested in exploring that.

Rich

Rotan Hanrahan wrote:

>This is just a quick update on some W3C work I've been doing recently.
>(See: http://www.w3.org/2004/06/DI-MCA-WS/)
> 
>We were looking for metadata concepts that would be useful in the
>adaptation of web content for multiple devices. The diverse group of
>participants agreed a few points; one in particular may be of interest
>to Beehive.
> 
>It was agreed that a web page could include metadata marking subsets of
>the document according to the "role" that is played by that subset. A
>number of technologies for implementing such a mechanism have been
>considered (OWL, RDF and other SemWeb concepts), but obviously it could
>be "a while" before this is translated into a tangible proposal.
> 
>However, it occurred to me that if a Beehive control, responsible for
>the generation of a subset of the web page, could be annotated with the
>same ontology applied to "role" then that control could also express
>the metadata (e.g. as embedded RDF) to facilitate subsequent adaptation
>of that content.
> 
>Simple example: a control that generates the main menu of the page
>would not only generate the markup but would also generate embedded RDF
>to indicate that the markup was in fact the "main menu" and not some
>random/unrelated collection of links. This information might later be
>used by content adaptation (e.g. client-side) to reposition the main
>menu for a different device/browser.
> 
>Getting such an idea into the mainstream could take a long time, but
>the existence of a respected software platform capable of supporting
>such a concept might help oil the wheels of standardization bodies...
> 
>I will be updating the W3C workshop pages over the next few weeks.
> 
>---Rotan
>  
>