Agent Encoding Scheme

Contents

Introduction
Characterising agents – the AGLS Agent scheme
Encoding AGLS Agent
Examples

Title: AGLS Agent Encoding Scheme
Creator: Andrew Wilson, National Archives of Australia
Creator: Nigel Ward
Date Issued: 2002-02-19

Introduction

The AGLS Agent scheme is a method for describing characteristics of agents in AGLS metadata descriptions. Agents are people, organisations or instruments associated with resources.

There are a number of characteristics of an agent that can be described in metadata. These include, but are not limited to:

an identifier for the agent, usually consisting of name and possibly including a jurisdiction
contact information

The AGLS metadata standard includes three elements for providing information about agents associated with a resource. These are Creator, Publisher, and Contributor. Here we define AGLS Agent, a structuring scheme for providing information about agent characteristics in AGLS metadata records, and describe a method for encoding AGLS Agent as a profile of DCSV (Dublin Core Structured Values).

Other methods for describing characteristics of agents are available. The vCARD specification is a standard for automating the exchange of personal information typically found on a traditional business card. The specification for the vCard protocol (RFC 2426 of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)) is available at www.imc.org/rfc2426. The X.500 protocol is a method for structuring directory databases, typically databases of names of individuals and/or organisations. The X.500 specification is available at www.itu.int/itudoc/itu-t/rec/x/x500up/x500.html.

A companion document to this description of the AGLS Agent scheme is the description of a scheme for structuring values for the AGLS Availability element. The components of the two schemes overlap to some extent but the semantic differences between the elements and the additional components available for use with the Availability element require separate schemes for the two sets of structuring components.

Characterising agents – the AGLS Agent scheme

AGLS identifies an agent by describing the following characteristics:

personalName	The name of a person
corporateName	The name of an organisation
jurisdiction	The legal jurisdiction of the agent – NB values for this component should be drawn from the AGLS Jurisdiction scheme
contact	Contact details for the agent, can include an official title, typically includes a phone number
address	Street or postal address for the agent
email	Email address for the agent
sector	Indicates whether the creator is from the government or non-government sector: 'government' and 'non-government' are the only allowable values – NB The default value is 'government'

All components are optional and ordering is not significant. All of the components except sector may be repeated. It is expected that typical agent descriptions making use of the AGLS Agent scheme will consist at least of 'personalName', or 'corporateName' and 'jurisdiction'.

Encoding AGLS Agent

The components of an AGLS Agent description have no meaning when considered separately. In any particular instance of the scheme it is the complete set of components used which acts as the agent description. Thus, use of AGLS Agent to identify an agent requires that the components are linked together. This is conveniently accomplished by packaging the components into a single text string. Various syntaxes for the text string are available, including Dublin Core Structured Values (DCSV) and eXtensible Markup Language (XML).

DCSV Encoding

Within AGLS metadata descriptions using the HTML syntax, characteristics of agents are encoded using the Dublin Core Structured Values scheme (dublincore.org/documents/1999/04/30/labelled-values-syntax/). DCSV describes how to write a structured metadata value in a simple text string. It separates components using semicolons ";". The name of a component and the value of a component are separated by an equals sign "=".

Writing AGLS Agent using DCSV notation is straightforward using the component names defined above. For example, National Archives of Australia could be described as:

corporateName=v1; jurisdiction=v2; contact=v3; email=v4; address=v5

where v1 – v5 are values as defined in the table above.

XML Encoding

AGLS Agent may be written in XML. Given the flexibility of XML many alternative notations are possible. One form looks like this:

<dc:Creator>
  <AglsAgent:corporateName>v1</AglsAgent:corporateName>
  <AglsAgent:jurisdiction>v2</AglsAgent:jurisdiction>
  <AglsAgent t:address>v3</AglsAgent:address>
  <AglsAgent:emails>v4</AglsAgent:email>
  <AglsAgent:contact>v5</AglsAgent:contact>
</dc:Creator>

Notice to implementers: the XML examples in this document are indicative only and should not be taken as normative. At the time of writing, syntaxes for expressing AGLS in XML and RDF/XML are under review. Recommendations on encoding AGLS metadata in XML and RDF will be made in the future.

Examples

NB: The XML namespace URIs used in the XML examples below are fictitious.

Agent who is a person

HTML

<meta name="DC.Creator" scheme="AglsAgent"content="personalName=Adrian Cunningham;
jurisdiction=Commonwealth of Australia; contact=Director Recordkeeping Standards and Policy;
contact=+61 02 6212 3988; email=adrianc@naa.gov.au; address=Box 7425 Canberra Mail Centre, ACT 2610">

XML

<agls:agls-record xmlns:dc="http://dublincore.org/elements/1.1/"
  xmlns:agls="http://agls.gov.au/agls/1.2"
  xmlns:AglsAgent="http://agls.gov.au/agent/1.0">
  <dc:Creator>
    <AglsAgent:personalName>Adrian Cunningham</AglsAgent:personalName>
    <AglsAgent:jurisdiction>Commonwealth of Australia </AglsAgent:jurisdiction>
    <AglsAgent:contact>Director RecordkeepinG Standards and Policy</AglsAgent:contact>
    <AglsAgent:contact>+61 02 6212 3988</AglsAgent:contact>
    <AglsAgent:email>adrianc@naa.gov.au</AglsAgent:email>
    <AglsAgent:address> Box 7425 Canberra Mail Centre, ACT 2610</AglsAgent:address>
  </dc:Creator>
</agls:agls-record>

Non-government Agent

HTML

<meta name="DC.Creator" scheme="AglsAgent" content="corporateName=Prince Alfred Old Collegians Cricket Club; 
contact=Secretary, 08 8431 5483; sector=non-government">

XML

<agls:agls-record xmlns:dc="http://dublincore.org/elements/1.1/"
  xmlns:agls="http://agls.gov.au/agls/1.2"
  xmlns:AglsAgent="http://agls.gov.au/agent/1.0">
  <dc:creator>
    <AglsAgent:corporateName>Prince Alfred Old Collegians Cricket Club</AglsAgent:corporateName>
    <AglsAgent:contact>Secretary, 08 8431 5483</AglsAgent:contact>
    <AglsAgent:sector>non-government</AglsAgent:sector>
  </dc:creator>
</agls:agls-record>

Corporate Agent

HTML

<meta name="DC.Creator" scheme="AglsAgent" content="corporateName=National Native Title Tribunal; 
jurisdiction=Commonwealth of Australia; address=GPO Box 9973, Perth WA 6848 ; 
address=Principal Registry, Commonwealth Law Courts, Level 4, 1 Victoria Ave, Perth WA 6000;
contact=(08) 9268 7272">

XML

<agls:agls-record xmlns:dc="http://dublincore.org/elements/1.1/"
  xmlns:agls="http://agls.gov.au/agls/1.2" xmlns:AglsAgent="http://agls.gov.au/agent/1.0">
  <dc:creator>
    <AglsAgent:corporateName>National Native Title Tribunal</AglsAgent:corporateName>
    <AglsAgent:jurisdiction>Commonwealth of Australia</AglsAgent:jurisdiction>
    <AglsAgent:address>GPO Box 9973, Perth WA 6848</AglsAgent:address>
    <AglsAgent:address>Principal Registry, Commonwealth Law Courts, Level 4, 1 Victoria Ave, Perth WA 6000</AglsAgent:address>
    <AglsAgent:contact>(08) 9268 7272</AglsAgent:contact>
  </dc:creator>
</agls:agls-record