The NISO NETREF Protocol Mark H Needleman Product Manager- Standards Sirsi Corporation LITA National Conference 2004

Agenda The Reference Environment & Network Models The NISO Committee Protocol Design Criteria Envisioned Usage Scenarios Protocol Messages Protocol Technologies Metadata Design Criteria Status and Implementations

Background 1999: Lankes & Sutton’s Question Interchange Profile (QuIP) December 2000: Proposal to NISO April 2001: NISO-sponsored workshop to explore areas for standardization December 2001: NISO AZ Committee on Networked Reference Services February 2002 – present: Real work!

The Environment Libraries using digital reference to extend services and reach more users Reference services evolving, moving from art to science Cooperation and collaborative services growing: Ask Eric, Virtual Reference Canada, QuestionPoint, 24/7 Reference, Internet Public Library, others

Committee Charge Develop question processing transaction protocol to support: Processing and routing of questions and responses Packaging of other information to be exchanged Cross domain exchange Develop metadata element sets to identify and describe key components of: Question and answer metadata Profiling metadata (institutional and personal data) Conduct experimentation and/or research in both areas to test the proposed standard Develop implementation guidelines & recommended best practices Research & experiment to test the proposed standard- implement the standard

Involved Parties Libraries and librarians Reference service providers Reference software and management providers Integrated library system providers Database and information systems Other providers of community services Tutoring programs Research services

Protocol Design Criteria Client/Server Design Transaction based - transaction consists of one or more messages Interaction is between 2 independent systems (although nothing precludes use inside a single system) Must support a wide range of application areas Protocol does not speak to interactions with end user Automate the question/answer process but recognize actual answers will be provided by people

Usage Scenarios Subset of actual use cases being presented Various scenarios are presented as being logically separate - in reality, they could be combined in multiple ways

Simplest Scenario Client asks question Server provides answer

Scenarios (2) Multipart question Multipart answer Clarifications Constraints Status reporting Suspend/Resume Cancellation

Scenarios (3) Failures Timeouts Status reports Forwarding Conversations Patron Redirect Reference to archived transactions

Current Protocol Messages Question Answer Request Clarification.... Clarification Constraint Constraint Reply Action Request Status Error Memo Other..... client initiated server initiated client initiated client or server initiated Client initiated Server initiated client or server initiated

Metadata Design Criteria May be used independent of Protocol Extensible where appropriate (we don’t know what we don’t know) Flexible: provides facilities or services to carry service-specific information Simple core data

Netref Metadata (1) Abstract Protocol package contains bundles for: Protocol metadata Content metadata Profiling metadata Categories of elements: Defined elements such as protocol-specific data, question ID, etc. Variable elements such as utility elements, domain-specific elements, etc.

Netref Metadata (2) Information about: the question and the context in which it was asked the levels and types of resources desired in the answer the user the user’s agent/library services desired constraints

Other Considerations Interaction with other protocols and standards NCIP, OpenURL, Z39.50, ILL, others? Additional models Fee-based services / e-commerce Local systems Knowledge bases Measuring user satisfaction Legal: privacy, copyright, jurisdictional law Global: cultural/national relevancy, language

Protocol Technology Encoding XML- defined using an XML Schema Transports SOAP over HTTP/HTTPS SOAP over SMTP Other technologies may be defined in future

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