Amendment List

1. xml:lang attribute value changes to align with RFC 3066

2. Extra examples in section 5.2

2. Extra examples in section 5.7.3

3. Six changes to examples to include FormalName attribute within TopicSet element.

4. xml:lang attribute value options expanded as in RFC 3066

4. AssociatedWith element Href attribute value to allow a URI

4. Catalog element Href attribute value to allow a URI

4. Status of Document expanded.

4. DateAndTime format extension.

5. xml:lang attribute value updated in examples.

6. References to and changes for version 1.1 DTD and Schema inserted.

7. Changes for version 1.2 inserted. (v7)

8. Erroneous usage of DateAndTime and Confidence attributes in various examples have been corrected. Section 1 now appropriately refers to the NewsML version 1.2 Document Type Definition covered by this document. Glossary entry for assignment corrected to identify it as an attribute. (v8)

9. Replaced references to obsolete IETF RFC 3066 with IETF BCP 47 in sections 5.4.2, 5.9.3 and the Glossary. (v9)

10. Added subdomain names as valid ProviderId values in sections 5.5.1.1, 5.5.1.2 and the Glossary. (v9)

11. Changed occurances of CCYY to YYYY in sections 5.5.1.2, 5.4.3, 5.4.6 and the Glossary. (v9)

12. Changed DOCTYPE in examples to have only a system identifier, in sections 5.1, 5.3, and 5.8. (v9)

Contents

1 Status of this document

2 Typographical conventions

3 Acknowledgements

4 NewsML Overview

     4.1 NewsML provides a framework for the interchange and management of news

     4.2 NewsML is based on XML

     4.3 NewsML is media-neutral

5 NewsML Functions

     5.1 The Structure of a NewsML Document

          5.1.1 Identifier Attributes

               5.1.1.1 The "Document-unique" Identifier

               5.1.1.2 The "Element-unique" Identifier

     5.2 Catalogs

     5.3 TopicSets

     5.4 NewsEnvelope

          5.4.1 TransmissionId

          5.4.2 SentFrom and SentTo

          5.4.3 DateAndTime

          5.4.4 NewsService and NewsProduct

          5.4.5 Priority

          5.4.6 Metadata Assignment

     5.5 The Structure of a NewsItem

          5.5.1 Formal Identification of a NewsItem

               5.5.1.1 ProviderId

               5.5.1.2 DateId

               5.5.1.3 NewsItemId

               5.5.1.4 RevisionId

               5.5.1.5 PublicIdentifier

          5.5.2 Informal Identifiers

               5.5.2.1 NameLabel

               5.5.2.2 DateLabel

               5.5.2.3 Label

     5.6 News Management

          5.6.1 NewsItemType

          5.6.2 FirstCreated

          5.6.3 ThisRevisionCreated

          5.6.4 Status

          5.6.5 StatusWillChange

          5.6.6 Urgency

          5.6.7 RevisionHistory

          5.6.8 DerivedFrom

          5.6.9 AssociatedWith

          5.6.10 Instruction

          5.6.11 Property

     5.7 The Structure of a NewsComponent

          5.7.1 Illustration of NewsComponents in Action

          5.7.2 EquivalentsList

          5.7.3 BasisForChoice

          5.7.4 Other Subelements of NewsComponent

     5.8 The Structure of a ContentItem

     5.9 Metadata

          5.9.1 Administrative Metadata

          5.9.2 Rights Metadata

          5.9.3 Descriptive Metadata

     5.10 NewsLines Expose Aspects of Metadata to Humans

     5.11 Publishing Revisions to NewsItems

     5.12 Use of Pointers

     5.13 The Evolution of NewsML

     5.14 Authentication and Security

6 Glossary

7 Short form of NewsML DTD

8 References

1 Status of this document

This Specification describes and amplifies the NewsML version 1.2 Document Type Definition.

Amendments to this Specification override and supercede notes in the NewsML version 1.2 Document Type Definition.

The NewsML Requirements document set out the capabilities that NewsML is required to deliver. The current specification describes the technical means that have been employed to meet those requirements. The requirements can be briefly summarised as follows (numbers in brackets preceded by the letter R are references to the relevant clauses in the NewsML Requirements document):

NewsML is to be a compact (R900), extensible and flexible (R700) structural framework for news, based on XML and other appropriate standards and specifications (R1000). It must support the representation of electronic news items, collections of such items, the relationships between them, and their associated metadata (R100). It must allow for the provision of multiple representations of the same information (R500), and handle arbitrary mixtures of media types, formats, languages and encodings (R300, R400). It must support all stages of the news lifecycle (R600) and allow the evolution of news items over time (R200). Though media-independent, NewsML will provide specific mechanisms for handling text (R1100). It will allow for the authentication and signature of both metadata and news content (R800).

2 Typographical conventions

In the sections that follow, the following conventions are used:

Blue underlined type is used for hyperlinks to external web resources

Bold blue underlined type is used for hyperlinks within this document

Italic type is used for technical terms, which are defined in the Glossary. There is a hotspot on these words that will take you direct to their definition. You can then press the blue Back arrow on Word’s “Web” toolbar to return to where you were.

Monospace type is used for XML element or attribute names, and for sample NewsML document instance or DTD fragments.

Monospace bold type is used for XML element or attribute names in descriptive text. These occurrences will have hotspots to brief definitions of their meaning in the Glossary. Formal definitions of these element and attribute names will also appear in the NewsML specification itself.

3 Acknowledgements

This specification is the result of a team effort by members of the International Press Telecommunications Council, with input and assistance from others.

Particular contributions are as follows:

The specification was edited by Daniel Rivers-Moore (RivCom). The work was directed and overseen by the NewsML Steering Committee whose members at the time of the specification being approved were Klaus Sprick (Deutsche Presse Agentur) – Chair, David Allen (IPTC), James Hartley (Bridge Information Systems), John Iobst (Newspaper Association of America), Alan Karben (Screaming Media), Laurent Le Meur (Agence France Presse), Irving Levine (Reuters) and Kevin Roche (Dow Jones). The specification incorporates work by several IPTC Working Parties, notably the News Structure, News Metadata and News Text Working Parties. Others who made written contributions include Paul Harman (Press Association), Johan Lindgren (Tidningarnas Telegrambyrå), Jo Rabin (Reuters), Tony Rentschler (Associated Press) and, from outside the IPTC, Martin Bryan (The SGML Centre), Ron Daniel (Metacode) and Paul Simmonds (BBC).

4 NewsML Overview

NewsML is a compact, extensible and flexible structural framework for news, based on XML and other appropriate standards and specifications. It supports the representation of electronic news items, collections of such items, the relationships between them, and their associated metadata. It allows for the provision of multiple representations of the same information, and handles arbitrary mixtures of media types, formats, languages and encodings. It supports all stages of the news lifecycle and allows the evolution of news items over time. Though media-independent, NewsML provides specific mechanisms for handling text. It allows the provenance of both metadata and news content to be asserted.

4.1 NewsML provides a framework for the interchange and management of news

NewsML is primarily intended as a format for the interchange of news. However, it may also be used as a format for news storage and as a support for the creation, editing, management and publication of news in a networked computing environment.

4.2 NewsML is based on XML

A NewsML document is an XML document, which must be valid with respect to the NewsML Document Type Definition (DTD) that appears in Appendix 1 of this specification.

Like all XML documents, NewsML documents are logical rather than physical objects. They may be built up of the contents of multiple physical files through the use of entity references as described in the XML specification, or by the use of pointers within the NewsML document.

4.3 NewsML is media-neutral

NewsML makes no assumption about the media type, format or encoding of news objects. NewsML documents can contain text, video, audio, graphics, photos, or other media and combinations of media yet to be invented.

5 NewsML Functions

In the sections that follow, we shall work through the entire NewsML document structure, beginning from the root (NewsML) element, and explain the structure and purpose of each element and attribute. Illustrative examples of key constructs will also be provided.

5.1 The Structure of a NewsML Document

The NewsML element is the root element of a complete NewsML document. The optional Version attribute provides an indication of the version of NewsML DTD or Schema used to validate the document. It must contain a NewsEnvelope and one or more NewsItems. It may contain one or more TopicSet elements that contain the Topics (or real-world things) referred to in the NewsML document itself or in any of the news content that it includes by reference. It may also contain a Catalog element that identifies and locates default vocabularies and indicates where in the NewsML document certain Topics are used. The Catalog element allows us to resolve URNs to URLs and to state which vocabulary (TopicSet) is the default for given element types in certain contexts.

5.1.1 Identifier Attributes

Every element in a NewsML document other than NewsIdentifier and its subelements may optionally have a Duid (document-unique identifier) and/or an Euid (element-unique identifier) attribute, whose purpose is to enable pointers elsewhere in the document, or in other NewsML or XML documents, to refer to it. The use of identifier attributes gives global identification to the document.

5.1.1.1 The “Document-unique” Identifier

The Duid must satisfy the rules for XML ID attributes; that is, it must only contain name characters as defined in the XML specification, and it must start with a name-start character (a name character that is not a digit). Its value must be unique within any NewsML document.

5.1.1.2 The “Element-unique” Identifier

The value of the Euid must be unique among elements of the same element type and having the same parent element. Use of the Euid attribute makes it possible to identify any NewsML element within the context of its local branch of the NewsML document tree. This makes it possible to copy, or include by reference, subtrees into new combinations in ways that would break the uniqueness of Duids (thereby forcing new Duids to be allocated), but still being able to retain the identity of each element. If Euids are maintained at every level, it is possible to use an XPointer expression to identify, for example "The ContentItem whose Euid is abc within the NewsComponent whose Euid is 1". Such identification patterns would be preserved even after "pruning and grafting" of subtrees.

5.2 Catalogs

Any of the main structural elements of a NewsML document can contain a Catalog element containing Resource and/or TopicUse elements.

Each Resource element identifies an external resource through a Uniform Resource Name (URN) and/or one or more Uniform Resource Locators (URLs). It also indicates whether this resource acts as a default vocabulary for some or all of the main element’s content. The Urn attribute provides a global identifier for the resource, typically a NewsML URN. The Url subelements, if present, point to locations where the resource may be found. The DefaultVocabularyFor element contains an XPath pattern. The identified resource acts as default vocabulary for the all elements or attribute that match the XPath pattern. If the XPath pattern is one that matches elements, then it is the value of the FormalName attribute of that element that is designated. If the XPath pattern is one that matches attributes, then it is the value of that attribute itself that is designated. The XPath pattern can be as simple or as complex as appropriate to distinguish those contexts where the default vocabulary applies.

TopicUse elements indicate where in the NewsML document certain topics are used. The value of the Topic attribute is a pointer consisting of a # character followed by the value of the Duid attribute of a Topic in the current document. The value of the Context attribute is an XPath pattern indicating the context where this topic is used within the subtree to which the current Catalog applies. If the Context attribute is not present, the TopicUse element simply states that this topic is present somewhere in the subtree.

The optional Href attribute provides a pointer to a Catalog element elsewhere in this or another document. Its value consists of a # character followed by the value of the Duid attribute of the referenced Catalog element, and preceded, if the referenced Catalog is not in the current document, by an URI or a NewsML URN identifying the document or NewsItem in which the Catalog appears. If the Href attribute is present on a Catalog element, then that element should be empty. If it contains subelements, the NewsML system may signal an error.

5.3 TopicSets

TopicSets contain Topic elements, which are references to real-world things (topics). These may be people, places, companies, or any other kind of thing that is deemed to be of particular significance, and that is referred to in, or otherwise relevant to, the news content or metadata in the NewsML document.

A topic may have one or more FormalName subelements and/or one or more Description subelements. The descriptions are intended to identify which individual thing it is. The FormalName element may have a Scheme attribute to indicate that it belongs to a particular naming scheme. It is an error for there to exist two Topics in the same TopicSet that have the same FormalName with the same Scheme attribute. It is therefore possible to use a TopicSet as a controlled vocabulary, to ascertain the meaning of any given formal name.

A Topic element may also have a Details attribute, which is a pointer, in the form of a URL or URN, to additional information about the topic. It may also have one or more Property subelements that provide values for specific properties of the topic. Topics and TopicSets may additionally have Comments that provide informal additional information in natural language.

Additional Topics may be included by reference in a TopicSet through the use of TopicSetRef subelements. The TopicSet attribute of a TopicSetRef element is a pointer to a TopicSet whose Topics are to be included by reference within the current TopicSet. This pointer is either an http URL or a NewsML URN identifying an internal or external TopicSet, or a fragment identifier consisting of a # sign followed by the value of the Duid attribute of a TopicSet in the current document.

If one of the Topics to be included by reference has the same FormalName and Scheme as a Topic already included in the TopicSet, this means that they both refer to the same real-world thing. Therefore, these two Topic elements are deemed to be merged. The merging of Topics need not be physically performed by the system, but the meaning of the data is exactly the same as if the merging were actually performed.

Every Topic has one or more TopicType subelements, which say what type of thing it is. The topic type is named in the FormalName attribute of the TopicType element. The Vocabulary attribute of the TopicType element is a pointer to a controlled vocabulary that defines the meaning of that FormalName. The Scheme attribute, if present, identifies which naming scheme within the vocabulary is applicable to this formal name.

5.4 NewsEnvelope

The NewsEnvelope element contains information about how the NewsML document is being used within a business workflow or contractual relationship between news provider and receiver. As a minimum, it must include a DateAndTime element. In addition, it may contain a TransmissionId, SentFrom, SentTo, Priority, and one or more NewsProduct, and/or NewsService elements.

5.4.1 TransmissionId

The TransmissionId is an identifier for the NewsML document transmission. This should be unique among all distinct transmissions from the same provider. If a transmission is repeated (perhaps because the sender is not confident that it was successfully received) then the same TransmissionId content may be used, but a Repeat attribute should be provided to distinguish the second transmission from the first. The form that the value of the Repeat attribute takes is determined by the provider. Likewise, the format for the TransmissionId itself is for the provider to decide. It could for example consist of a channel identifier followed by a sequence number.

5.4.2 SentFrom and SentTo

The SentFrom element identifies one or more parties who sent the NewsML document, and the SentTo element identifies one or more parties to whom it is being sent. The content model of both is provided by the party entity, which describes the person, organisation or company playing a specific role in the news workflow. The optional Comment element provides informal additional information in natural language. The Comment element has optional xml:lang and TranslationOf attributes. The xml:lang attribute identifies the language of the contents of an XML element. It is defined in the XML specification and its value must be as defined in the IETF BCP 47 . Although this allows the optional use of ISO639-1 or ISO639-2 language codes and ISO3166-alpha2 or ISO3166-alpha3 country codes it is required that the ISO639-1 two letter language codes are used. Publishers may choose 2 or 3 letter country codes as they wish. The structure of the xml:lang attribute content may therefore be ll-CC or ll-CCC. The TranslationOf attribute is a pointer to another Comment element, of which this Comment is a direct translation. The comment type is optionally named in the FormalName attribute of the Comment element. The Vocabulary attribute of the Comment element is a pointer to a controlled vocabulary that defines the meaning of that FormalName. The Scheme attribute, if present, identifies which naming scheme within the vocabulary is applicable to this formal name.

Through its Property child element or its FormalName, Vocabulary and Scheme attributes, the Party element identifies a Topic that is the party in question. The optional Topic attribute may be used as a direct pointer to that Topic. The pointer may take the form of an http URL or a NewsML URN, or a # character followed by the value of the Duid attribute of a Topic element in the current document.

5.4.3 DateAndTime

The DateAndTime element contains the date, and optionally the time, of transmission. This is in ISO 8601:2000(E) format, using the YYYYMMDD form for the date, optionally followed by the letter T and the local time in HHMMSS format, and optionally a + or – sign followed by the HHMM difference between local time and Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Where the offset difference is +0000 the letter suffix "Z" may alternatively be use.

5.4.4 NewsService and NewsProduct

The NewsService and NewsProduct elements indicate a product or service of which this package is a part. Multiple NewsService and NewsProduct elements are permitted. The value of the FormalName attribute is a formal name for the product or service. Its meaning and permitted values are determined by the controlled vocabulary identified by the Vocabulary and Scheme attributes.

5.4.5 Priority

The Priority element contains an indication of the priority of a NewsItem. The value of the FormalName attribute is a formal name for the priority. Its meaning and permitted values are determined by the controlled vocabulary identified by the Vocabulary and Scheme attributes.

5.4.6 Metadata Assignment

The assignment entity consists of AssignedBy, Importance, Confidence, HowPresent, and DateAndTime attributes.

The AssignedBy attribute identifies the party assigning a piece of metadata. It can be in the form of a string designating the party informally (for example, a person’s name), or a pointer in the form of a fragment identifier consisting of a # character followed by the value of the Duid attribute of a Topic corresponding to the party.

The Confidence attribute indicates the confidence with which the metadata has been assigned, the Importance attribute indicates the importance attached to the metadata by the party assigning it, and the HowPresent attribute indicates the way in which the metadata applies. The values of these three attributes are formal names, whose meanings are determined by controlled vocabularies. There must therefore be a Catalog that declares appropriate default vocabularies for each of these attributes wherever they are used. Furthermore, the complete set of terms in each default vocabulary determines the range of permitted values for the corresponding attribute. Note that if the resource identified in the Catalog as being the default vocabulary is a NewsML TopicSet, then the range of permitted values is precisely the set of Topics in the TopicSet.

The DateAndTime attribute indicates the date and (optionally) time at which a piece of metadata was assigned, using the format YYYYMMDDTHHMMSS±HHMM (century, year, month, day, time separator, hours, minutes, seconds, time zone separator, hours, minutes). This is the Basic Format defined by ISO 8601.

5.5 The Structure of a NewsItem

A NewsItem is a managed set of information representing a point of view, at a given time, on some event or events. Its Identification and NewsManagement subelements provide identification information and manageability. In addition, it may contain a NewsComponent, or one or more Update elements that modify a previous revision of the same NewsItem, or a TopicSet.

A Catalog applicable to the NewsItem may be contained in the Catalog subelement or referenced by the optional Href attribute of the Catalog subelement which provides a pointer to a Catalog element elsewhere in this or another document.

5.5.1 Formal Identification of a NewsItem

It must be possible to identify a NewsItem as it moves through the business workflow, and is transferred from place to place and from system to system. NewsML therefore requires NewsItems to have a globally unique identifier in the form of a NewsIdentifier element.

The NewsIdentifier has four component subelements – ProviderId, DateId, NewsItemId and RevisionId – and a PublicIdentifier which concatenates all four components in a single string. The NewsIdentifier provides a globally unique identifier for a NewsItem. Providers must therefore ensure that no two NewsItems carry the same ProviderId, DateId, NewsItemId and RevisionId. If a NewsItem is re-created after a change in content, however slight, a new RevisionId should be allocated to the new version.

5.5.1.1 ProviderId

The content of the ProviderId element must be an Internet domain name -- and may include a subdomain name -- that is owned by the provider at the date identified by the DateId element, or the name for the provider drawn from a controlled vocabulary identified by a URN specified in the Vocabulary attribute. This will ensure that the identity of the provider can be inferred unambiguously from the full NewsIdentifier.

5.5.1.2 DateId

The DateId is a date in ISO 8601 Basic Format (YYYYMMDD), where YYYY is a four-digit year number, MM is a two-digit month number and DD is a two-digit day number. Note that because the DateId is part of the formal identification of the NewsItem, it must remain the same through successive revisions of the same NewsItem. It does not represent the date of release of the current revision.

5.5.1.3 NewsItemId

The NewsItemId is an identifier for the NewsItem. The combination of NewsItemId and DateId must be unique among NewsItems that emanate from the same provider. Within these constraints, the NewsItemId can take any form the provider wishes. It may take the form of a name for the NewsItem that will be meaningful to humans, but this is not a requirement.

The provider may optionally relate the values of NewsItemId to a controlled vocabulary, which is invoked by the Vocabulary attribute. The value of the Vocabulary attribute may be an http URL or a NewsML URN, or the # character followed by the value of the Duid attribute of a TopicSetin the current document. The Scheme attribute, if present, serves to distinguish which of possibly multiple naming schemes in the controlled vocabulary is the one that governs the NewsItemId.

5.5.1.4 RevisionId

The RevisionId is a positive integer indicating which revision of a given NewsItem this is. Any positive integer may be used, but it must always be the case that of two instances of a NewsItem that have the same ProviderId, DateId and NewsItemId, the one whose RevisionId has the larger value must be the more recent revision. A RevisionId of 0 is not permitted. The PreviousRevision attribute must be present, and its value must be equal to the content of the RevisionId element of the NewsItem’s previous revision, if there is one, and 0 if the NewsItem has no previous revision. If the NewsItem contains an Update element or elements, then the Update attribute must be set to U. If the NewsItem consists only of a replacement set of NewsManagement data, then the Update attribute must be set to A. If neither of these is the case, then the Update attribute must be set to N.

5.5.1.5 PublicIdentifier

The PublicIdentifier element provides a public identifier for the NewsItem, in the sense defined by the XML 1.0 Specification. This takes the form of a URN for the NewsItem, which is constructed as follows:

urn:newsml:{ProviderId}:{DateId}:{NewsItemId}:{RevisionId}{RevisionId@Update}

where {x} means “the content of the x subelement of the NewsIdentifier” and {x@y} means “the value of the y attribute of the x subelement of the NewsIdentifier” , with the exception that if the Update attribute of the RevisionId element has its default value of N, it is omitted from the URN .

This NewsML URN has been codified by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) as its Request For Comments (RFC) number 3085 which can be found at http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3085.txt. Note that the set of characters that can be directly included within a URN is limited. The allowed characters are specified by the IETF in its RFC number 2141. This document is available at http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2141.txt. Any character that is not within the permitted URN character set must be converted to a sequence of legal characters as described in RFC 2141.

Note that the existence of this URN enables the NewsItem to be referenced unambiguously by pointers from other XML elements or resources. Within such pointers, if the RevisionId, its preceding : character and its following Update qualifier are omitted, then the pointer designates the most recent revision at the time it is resolved.

5.5.2 Informal Identifiers

In addition to the formal identification mechanisms described above, NewsML provides a series of Label elements that can be used by human users to identify NewsItems. As far as the NewsML system is concerned, these are arbitrary strings, and cannot be relied upon to provide a robust identification mechanism. Their sole purpose is to provide a convenient way for humans to identify a particular NewsItem in informal exchanges and communications, or as part of a user interface.

5.5.2.1 NameLabel

The NameLabel element contains a string used by human users as a name to help identify a NewsItem. Its form is determined by the provider. It might be identical to the textual content of the SlugLine element, for example, but even if this is so, the system should not process the NameLabel as a slugline. Nothing can be assumed about the nature of the string within NameLabel beyond the fact that it can help to identify the NewsItem to humans.

5.5.2.2 DateLabel

The DateLabel element contains a string representation of a date. Since the purpose of the label is to be convenient to users, this might not be in ISO standard date format.

5.5.2.3 Label

The Label element is an optional and a human-readable label for a NewsItem consisting of LabelType and LabelText subelements. The LabelText is the text that constitutes a Label of a given LabelType. The LabelType is a user-defined type of label. The value of the FormalName attribute is a formal name for the label type. Its meaning and permitted values are determined by the controlled vocabulary identified by the Vocabulary and Scheme attributes.

5.6 News Management

The NewsManagement element provides information relevant to the management of a NewsItem: information about a NewsItem’s type, history and status, as well as its relationship to other NewsItems, and any special instructions to be applied to it or additional properties that it may have.

5.6.1 NewsItemType

The NewsItemType element contains an indication of the type of a NewsItem. The value of the FormalName attribute is a formal name for the news-item type. Its meaning and permitted values are determined by the controlled vocabulary identified by the Vocabulary and Scheme attributes.

5.6.2 FirstCreated

This required element indicates the date and, optionally, time at which a NewsItem was first created, expressed in ISO 8601 Basic Format.

5.6.3 ThisRevisionCreated

This required element indicates the date and, optionally, time at which the current revision of a NewsItem was created, expressed in ISO 8601 Basic Format.

5.6.4 Status

This required element indicates the current status of a NewsItem. The value of the FormalName attribute is a formal name for the status. Its meaning and permitted values are determined by the controlled vocabulary identified by the Vocabulary and Scheme attributes.

5.6.5 StatusWillChange

The optional StatusWillChange element provides advance notification of a status change that will automatically occur at a specified date and time. Within StatusWillChange, the required FutureStatus element indicates the status the NewsItem will have at a specified future date. The value of the FormalName attribute is a formal name for the status. Its meaning and permitted values are determined by the controlled vocabulary identified by the Vocabulary and Scheme attributes. The required DateAndTime element indicates, using ISO 8601 Basic Format, the date or date and time at which the status change will occur. For example, an item with a Status of “embargoed” might have a StatusWillChange element stating that the status will become “usable” at a specified time. This is equivalent to announcing in advance the time at which the embargo will end and the item will be released. Multiple use of this element allows advance indication of pre-planned changes to the Status of a NewsItem.

5.6.6 Urgency

The optional Urgency element contains an indication of the urgency of the NewsItem. The value of the FormalName attribute is a formal name for the degree of urgency. Its meaning and permitted values are determined by the controlled vocabulary identified by the Vocabulary and Scheme attributes.

5.6.7 RevisionHistory

The optional RevisionHistory element provides a pointer to a file containing the revision history of the NewsItem via its Href attribute. The provider can choose whatever syntax and structure they like for this file.

5.6.8 DerivedFrom

The optional and repeatable DerivedFrom element provides a pointer to a NewsItem from which this one is derived. The NewsItem attribute identifies the relevant NewsItem. Its value can be an http URL or a NewsML URN. The optional Comment can be used to indicate the nature of the derivation. The pointer type is optionally named in the FormalName attribute of the DerivedFrom element. The Vocabulary attribute of the DerivedFrom element is a pointer to a controlled vocabulary that defines the meaning of that FormalName. The Scheme attribute, if present, identifies which naming scheme within the vocabulary is applicable to this formal name.

5.6.9 AssociatedWith

The optional and repeatable AssociatedWith element provides a pointer to a NewsItem with which this one is associated (for example, a series of articles, or a collection of photos, of which it is a part). The NewsItem attribute identifies the relevant NewsItem. Its value can be an URI or a NewsML URN. The optional Comment can be used to indicate the nature of the association. The pointer type is optionally named in the FormalName attribute of the AssociatedWith element. The Vocabulary attribute of the AssociatedWith element is a pointer to a controlled vocabulary that defines the meaning of that FormalName. The Scheme attribute, if present, identifies which naming scheme within the vocabulary is applicable to this formal name.

5.6.10 Instruction

The optional and repeatable Instruction element contains an instruction from a news provider to the recipient of a NewsItem. A special case of Instruction is an indication of the effect the current revision of a NewsItem has on the status of any previous revisions of the NewsItem that may still be on the recipient's system. In this case, it will contain one or more RevisionStatus elements. Otherwise, the value of the FormalName attribute is a formal name for the instruction. Its meaning and permitted values are determined by the controlled vocabulary identified by the Vocabulary and Scheme attributes.

The RevisionStatus element indicates the status that previous revisions now have as a result of the release of the current revision. The optional Revision attribute is an integer, equal to the RevisionId of the revision in question. If it is not present, then the status applies to all previous revisions, without exception.

5.6.11 Property

The Property element is used to assert the value of some property on a Party,ContentItem, a Topic, NewsComponent, or a NewsItem. The property must be formally named and may contain subproperties to handle complex properties.

The Property has a name and either a simple or a complex value consisting of a set of further properties. The Value attribute provides a string representation of the value of a Property. The ValueRef attribute gives a pointer to the value of the Property. This might be a Topic in a TopicSet, or any other piece of data. If both Value and ValueRef attributes are provided, then ValueRef identifies the actual value of the Property, with Value simply providing a string representation or mnemonic for it. The AllowedScheme attribute, if present, designates the Scheme associated with the contents of the Value attribute of the property. The AllowedValues attribute, if present, is a pointer to a controlled vocabulary that delimits the set of allowed values for the property. This may be an http URL, or a NewsML URN, or a fragment identifier consisting of a # character followed by the Duid of an element in the current document. The pointer must reference either a Resource element that designates an external controlled vocabulary, or a TopicSet element, that is itself the controlled vocabulary.

5.7 The Structure of a NewsComponent

It is a characteristic feature of news that it often brings together multiple data objects, for example, a text story, a photograph and its caption, and a vector graphic. Further, it is often necessary to bring together multiple complete stories and handle them as a coherent collection, for example in a digest of the week’s major stories, or as a response to a query seeking out stories relating to a particular event or theme. In order to handle this complexity, NewsComponents enable this complexity to be managed. They serve to specify the structural relationships between news objects.

The NewsComponent is a container for news objects. It is used to identify the role of news objects in relation to one another and to ascribe metadata to them. The Essential attribute indicates whether the provider considers that this NewsComponent is essential to the meaning of the NewsComponent within which it is contained. The EquivalentsList attribute indicates whether or not the NewsItems or NewsItemRefs, NewsComponents or ContentItems contained within this one are equivalent to one another in content and/or meaning. The Role subelement of a NewsComponent specifies the role played by a NewsComponent within a NewsComponent that contains it. The outermost NewsComponent within a NewsItem need not specify a Role attribute value. The value of the FormalName attribute is a formal name for the Role. Its meaning and permitted values are determined by a controlled vocabulary.

5.7.1 Illustration of NewsComponents in Action

The following figure shows a single NewsItem comprising three NewsComponents that tell the same story for WEB, for TV and for RADIO. The TV and RADIO versions each contain a single NewsComponent (VIDEO and AUDIO respectively). The WEB version comprises multiple NewsComponents (MAIN TEXT, PHOTO and SIDE BAR). The SIDE BAR has two NewsComponents (TEXT and GRAPH). Finally, the GRAPH has two NewsComponents showing the same information in different ways (PIE CHART and BAR CHART).

The VIDEO, AUDIO, TEXT and MAIN TEXT NewsComponents contain ContentItems that carry the story in different languages. The PHOTO NewsComponent contains ContentItems that have different resolutions. The PIE CHART and BAR CHART NewsComponents contain just one ContentItem each.

5.7.2 EquivalentsList

The distinction between those NewsComponents that are EquivalentsLists and those that are not is clarified in the following two pictures.

5.7.3 BasisForChoice

The content of the BasisForChoice element is an XPath pattern or element-type name identifying information within each NewsComponent or ContentItem that can be used as a basis for choice between equivalent NewsComponents or ContentItems. If the XPath pattern begins with a . character, this represents the ‘root’ of the XPath and corresponds to the NewsComponent or ContentItem itself. By applying the XPath pattern to each NewsComponent or ContentItem in turn within the set of equivalents, the system can extract the data on the basis of which a choice between the items can be made. If multiple matches to the XPath pattern are present within the subtree that begins at the ‘root’, only the first match found in document order is significant. The optional Rank attribute allows providers to place a numerical order on the importance they think should be attached to the different bases for choice. Smaller numbers represent higher importance.

5.7.4 Other Subelements of NewsComponent

A NewsComponent may contain an optional NewsLines, AdministrativeMetadata, RightsMetadata and DescriptiveMetadata elements. The function of these elements is described in section 5.9, Metadata, of this document. It may also contain any number of Metadata elements, which carry user-defined metadata not defined within the NewsML specification.

5.8 The Structure of a ContentItem

A ContentItem is a news object that carries or identifies renderable content (such as text, images, video, audio etc) intended for presentation to humans. Note that NewsML is media-neutral, so the rendering can be through any medium and for any of the human senses (including sight, sound, touch or a combination of these). The recommended format for text contained within ContentItems is IPTC-NAA NITF.

A ContentItem must carry some raw data, contained inline within a DataContent element, or a pointer to it, using the Href attribute of the ContentItem element. If a pointer is used, the NewsML document is to be interpreted in exactly the same way as if the data were included inline. Possible reasons for using pointers include reducing the amount of data that needs to be physically transferred or stored, and handling data objects whose format is such that they cannot be included directly within a well-formed XML document.

The DataContent element may be wrapped in one or more Encoding elements, indicating how it has been encoded. If the raw data of the DataContent element is included inline, care must be taken to ensure that it does not result in the NewsML document ceasing to be well-formed XML, or ceasing to comply with the NewsML DTD. Techniques that can be adopted to ensure that this problem does not arise include:

• Ensure that the data contains no characters that could be seen as XML markup

• If there are some characters that could be seen as XML markup, but the specific string ]]> does not occur anywhere, to wrap the data in a CDATA section, as described in the XML 1.0 Specification.

• If the data consists of XML content, and includes no elements whose names are identical with the NewsML element names, to declare the element types used in the internal DTD subset of the document.

The optional MediaType, MimeType, Format and Notation subelements of a ContentItem indicate its media type, MIME-type, format and notation respectively. The meaning and permitted values of the FormalName attributes on these elements are determined by the controlled vocabularies identified by the Vocabulary and Scheme attributes.

A ContentItem may also contain a Characteristics element that provides information about the physical characteristics of a ContentItem and whose purpose is to help determine the system requirements needed in order to handle the data before or after it has been interpreted. This might cover such things as file size, pixel height and width (for a raster image), number of frames (for a video clip), duration (for an audio file) and number of bytes (for all kinds of object). In NewsML version 1.0, SizeInBytes is the only characteristic that is represented by a specific element type. For all other characteristics, the generic Property element is used. For an explanation of the use of this generic element, see section 5.6.11 Property.

5.9 Metadata

NewsML recognises the following categories of metadata on NewsComponents:

• AdministrativeMetadata

• RightsMetadata

• DescriptiveMetadata.

5.9.1 Administrative Metadata

The AdministrativeMetadata element contains information about the provenance of a NewsComponent. This information applies to the NewsComponent that is the immediate parent of the AdministrativeMetadata element, or the NewsItem that is the immediate parent of that NewsComponent.

The optional FileName element identifies the suggested or actual storage file name for a NewsItem.

The optional SystemIdentifier element specifies a system address (such as a URL) where the item can be found. It provides a system identifier for a NewsItem, in the sense defined by the XML 1.0 Specification.

The optional Provider and Creator elements identify an individual and/or company or organisation that released or created the news object (with an optional Comment to provide any additional relevant information about this).

The optional and repeatable Source element identifies the source (an individual and/or company or organisation) that provided source material for a news object. The optional NewsItem attribute must be present in the case of a syndicated NewsItem. It provides the URN of the NewsItem that is being syndicated. Note that a sequence of Source elements can be used to indicate the sequence of syndicators through which a NewsItem has passed. Again, a Comment can provide any additional relevant information.

The optional and repeatable Contributor element identifies an individual and/or company or organisation that modified or enhanced a news object after its creation. The Comment element here can be used to indicate the nature of their contribution.

The optional and repeatable Contribution element for the Creator and Contributor elements identifies the kind of contribution a Creator or Contributor has made to the creation or modification of a news object.

Finally, the optional and repeatable Property element can be used to provide any additional administrative metadata that is not explicitly provided for within the NewsML DTD.

5.9.2 Rights Metadata

The RightsMetadata element contains information about the rights pertaining to a NewsComponent, and any relevant usage rights that have been granted by the copyright holder to other parties.

The Copyright element has required CopyrightHolder and CopyrightDate subelements and an optional and repeatable Comment subelement. The assignment attribute indicates whom the copyright was assigned by, with what degree of importance and confidence, and at what date and time according to ISO 8601 Basic Format. The CopyrightDate and CopyrightHolder elements provide natural-language statements of the copyright date and ownership.

The RightsMetadata contains subelements that contain text, optionally interspersed with Origin elements. The textual content is intended for human interpretation. The Origin element is a wrapper for all or part of this text, which provides a pointer to an item of data corresponding formally to what is being described here in natural language. The Href attribute on the Origin element identifies the relevant data, and may be an http URL or a NewsML URN, optionally followed by a fragment identifier. Alternatively, it can be a simple fragment identifier consisting of a # character followed by the value of the Duid of an element in the current document.

However, the Origin elements provide pointers to machine-interpretable data held elsewhere, that conveys the same information as this human-readable text. The UsageRights subelement of RightsMetadata provides information about the usage rights pertaining to a NewsComponent. The UsageRights element is composed of six subelements: UsageType, which provides a natural-language indication of the type of usage to which the rights apply; Geography indicating the geographical area or areas to which specified usage rights pertain; RightsHolder indicating who has the usage rights; Limitations indicating any restrictions on the use of the content of the NewsComponent; and, finally, StartDate and EndDate, indicating the time period over which the stated rights apply.

Finally, the optional and repeatable Property element can be used to provide any additional rights metadata that is not explicitly provided for within the NewsML DTD.

5.9.3 Descriptive Metadata

The DescriptiveMetadata element contains information describing the content of a NewsComponent. Language, Genre, SubjectCode, OfInterestTo, DateLineDate, Location,TopicOccurrence, and Property subelements indicate the NewsComponent’s genre, subject, target audience, and any languages that it may use (this may be useful in determining whether the piece is appropriate for a particular audience or publication), and give information about any people, places, organisations, countries or other real-world things alluded to in the piece, or to whom the piece is relevant in any way.

The Language element indicates the, or a, language used in a content item. The value of the FormalName attribute is a formal name for the Language element. Its meaning and permitted values are determined by BCP 47 as a special kind of controlled vocabulary in case no TopicSet is defined to control this value.

The Genre element indicates the genre of a NewsComponent. The value of the FormalName attribute is a formal name for the Genre. Its meaning and permitted values are determined by the controlled vocabulary identified by the Vocabulary and Scheme elements.

The SubjectCode element contains the IPTC Subject Codes, as defined in the IptcSubjectCodes TopicSet, that indicate the subject of a NewsItem. It consists of one more Subject, SubjectMatter and SubjectDetail elements, optionally amplified by one or more SubjectQualifier elements.

The OfInterestTo element indicates the target audience of a NewsItem. Its Relevance subelement indicates the relevance of a NewsItem to a given target audience. The value of the FormalName attribute provides formal names for the OfInterestTo and Relevance elements, the meaning and permitted values of which are determined by the controlled vocabulary identified by the Vocabulary and Scheme elements.

The DateLineDate element may be used to provide a logical equivalent for the date of creation of the NewsItem. Its content is in the ISO8601 Basic Date Format.

The Location element provides a method of indicating location information using its child Property elements. The optional HowPresent attribute indicates the type of the location.

The TopicOccurrence element states what Topics occur in a NewsComponent. The optional HowPresent attribute indicates the nature of their occurrence. The value of the Topic attribute must consist of a # character followed by the value of the Duid attribute of a Topic in the current document.

Finally, the optional and repeatable Property element can be used to provide any additional descriptive metadata that is not explicitly provided for within the NewsML DTD.

Note particularly, the use of the assignment elements to indicate by whom, and with what degree of confidence the descriptive metadata was assigned. The assignment information is inherited throughout the subtree, unless overruled by new assignment elements at lower levels of the tree. Note that assignment information, including qualifications of degree of competence, and levels of importance, can be provided at any level of detail.

5.10 NewsLines Expose Aspects of Metadata to Humans

NewsComponents may include NewsLines, whose purpose is to provide a human-readable (publishable) representation of certain aspects of the metadata. The NewsLines element contains HeadLine, SubHeadLine, ByLine, DateLine, CreditLine, CopyrightLine, RightsLine, SeriesLine, SlugLine, and KeywordLine subelements. All these are optional and repeatable with the exception that a SubHeadLine may only occur if a HeadLine is also present.

The HeadLine element provides a displayable headline and the SubHeadLine element provides a displayable subsidiary headline.

The ByLine element provides a natural-language statement of the author/creator information.

The ByLineTitle element provides a natural-language statement of the title of the author/creator information.

The DateLine element provides a natural-language statement of the date and/or place of the NewsComponent’s creation.

The CreditLine element provides a natural-language statement of credit information.

The CopyrightLine element provides a natural-language statement of the copyright information.

The RightsLine element provides a displayable version of rights information. Note that this is distinct from copyright information. Copyright information is about who owns a news object; rights information is about who is allowed to use it, in what way and under what circumstances.

The SeriesLine element provides a displayable version of information about a news object's place in a series.

The SlugLine element provides a string of text, possibly embellished by hyperlinks and/or formatting, used to display a NewsItem's slug line. (Note that the meaning of the term "slug line", and the uses to which it is put, are a matter for individual providers to define within their own workflow and business practice.)

The KeywordLine element provides a displayable set of keywords relevant to a news object. This can be used by a

NewsML system to assist manual or automated searches.

NewsLine elements allow for the inclusion of a type of newsline not included in the NewsML specification. Each newsline element must contain one NewsLineType element and may contain one or more NewsLineText elements. If more than one NewsLineText element is present, then they should be distinguished by their xml:lang attribute, which indicates the language in which they are written.

NewsLineType elements indicate a user-defined NewsLine type. The value of the FormalName attribute is a formal name for the NewsLineType. Its meaning and permitted values are determined by a controlled vocabulary identified by the Vocabulary and Scheme attributes.

NewsLineText elements contain the text of a NewsLine of a user-defined type. NewsLineText elements may contain any mix of plain text and Origin elements.

The NewsLines element is a container for all the NewsLines that a NewsComponent has.

5.11 Publishing Revisions to NewsItems

A new revision of a NewsItem is created by publishing a new NewsML document containing a NewsItem with the same ProviderId, DateId and NewsItemId as the NewsItem to be revised.

To modify one or more subelements of NewsManagement and/or Identification, without any change to any other parts of the NewsItem, then the content of the RevisionId element should be identical to the original one, the value of its Update attribute should be set to A, and the NewsItem should contain the complete Identification and NewsManagement elements, incorporating any changes, and nothing else.

If any other part of the NewsItem is modified in any way, then the RevisionId should be a higher number than it was previously, and its PreviousRevision attribute should be equal to the previous version’s RevisionId. There are then two choices:

• The entire NewsItem is published, incorporating any changes that may have been made, and the value of the Update attribute of the RevisionId element is set to N

• The NewsComponent subelement of the NewsItem is not included in the new document, but in its place, one or more Update elements are provided, indicating the modifications that have been made, and the value of the Update attribute of the RevisionId element is set to U.

The Update element indicates a modification to an existing NewsItem. This can be an insertion, replacement

or deletion. Note that the Update element cannot be used to modify the NewsManagement or Identification element, or any of their descendants. Modifications to these parts of the NewsItem can be made by issuing the NewsItem under the current revision number, with only the Identification and NewsManagement elements present. These will replace the previous Identification and NewsManagement elements in their totality. An Update element contains any number of subelements of the following kinds:

• Delete

• Replace

• InsertBefore

• InsertAfter.

It is the responsibility of the recipient to generate a new copy of the NewsItem on their system, by applying the Update instructions to the previous revision of the NewsItem, which they should already have, or be able to request from the provider. To generate the new revision of the NewsItem, each subelement of each Update element is processed in turn, in the order in which they occur. The value of each subelement's DuidRef attribute should match the Duid of an element in the previous revision. This is the element to which the instruction applies. In the case of Delete, the identified element is omitted from the revised NewsItem. In the case of Replace, the identified element is replaced by the content of the Replace element. In the case of InsertBefore, the content of the InsertBefore element is added to the revision in front of the identified element. In the case of InsertAfter, the content of the InsertAfter element is added to the revision after the identified element.

5.12 Use of Pointers

NewsML supports the use of pointers to include data by reference rather than explicitly. This mechanism is used to reference external data objects within ContentItems, and may also be used to include an existing NewsItem in a NewsML document without having to copy all its content to the new document.

In the case of ContentItems, the Href attribute of the ContentItem is used to include an external object by reference, as explained in section 5.8 The Structure of a ContentItem.

In the case of NewsItems, the NewsItemRef provides a pointer to a NewsItem that is deemed to replace the NewsItemRef element. The NewsItem attribute is a pointer to the relevant NewsItem. Its value can be an http URL or a NewsML URN or a fragment identifier consisting of a # sign followed by the Duid of a NewsItem in the current document. The optional Comment allows opportunity to comment on the reason for including this NewsItem.

5.13 The Evolution of NewsML

NewsML will provide generic Metadata, Property, Label and NewsLine elements, each of which has a name drawn from a declared naming scheme. These elements can be used to add new kinds of metadata, newslines or labels in a controlled manner, thereby allowing the expressive capabilities of NewsML documents to develop over time. When a new version of NewsML itself is released, it will be possible to add some or all of these new kinds of metadata, newslines or labels to the NewsML DTD or schema.

5.14 Authentication and Security

AdministrativeMetadata identifies the source (author, publisher, redistributor, etc) of NewsComponents. It is therefore possible for receivers of NewsML documents to form judgements as to the confidence they place in the information they receive, based in part on the identity of the people and/or organisations from which it comes.

NewsML does not explicitly provide mechanisms for authentication and the attachment of digital signatures to news objects. It is anticipated that the mechanisms defined by the W3C in its XML-Signatures specification will be used, once that specification has become a W3C Recommendation.

6 Glossary

AdministrativeMetadata Metadata that gives information about the provenance of a NewsComponent and an indication of how to name it within an XML content-management system.

AllowedValues  An attribute of the Property element that points to a controlled vocabulary that delimits the set of allowed values for the property.

AssignedBy  An indication of who, or what system, assigned a piece of metadata.

assignment  An entity comprising a set of attributes that allow assertions to be made as to who, or what system, assigned a piece of metadata, with what degree of confidence, what importance they give to the assignment, and what is the nature of the presence of the referenced topic in this context.

AssociatedWith  A reference to a NewsItem with which this one is associated.

attribute  An XML construct consisting of a name-value pair representing a property of an XML element. The attribute statement is contained within the start-tag of the element.

Example:

<MyElement MyProperty="myvalue"/>

Here, the MyElement element has a MyProperty property whose value is myvalue.

BasisForChoice  A subelement of a NewsComponent, whose content is an XPath statement that identifies, relative to each item within the NewsComponent, a data object whose value can be used as a basis for selection among the items.

ByLine  A displayable version of author/creator information.

ByLineTitle  A displayable version of the title of the author/creator information.

Catalog  A container for Resource and TopicUse elements. Resource elements map URNs to URLs and indicate default vocabularies which apply to the formal names of certain elements within the subtree that begins with the immediate parent of the Catalog element.

Characteristics  Provides information about the physical characteristics of a ContentItem that is relevant to the system requirements needed in order to handle the data before or after it has been interpreted. This covers such things as file size in bytes, and other properties that may be defined by users through controlled vocabularies, or added to the NewsML DTD in future versions.

Comment  A multi-language description of, or statement about, the current element. It provides additional human-readable information that amplifies the information contained within the comment’s parent element.

complements  News objects that should be taken together, as each provides only a part of the full information that may be needed.

Confidence  A rating of the confidence with which a topic reference was assigned in a given context. The value of the Confidence attribute is governed by a controlled vocabulary.

content  All the data that occurs between an element's start-tag and its end-tag.

Example:

<MyElement>text<ContentItem Href="a.xml"/></MyElement>

Here, the content of the MyElement element is

text<ContentItem Href="a.xml"/>

The ContentItem element has no content.

ContentItem  A news object that contains, or provides a pointer to, a data object that carries renderable content (such as text, images, video, audio etc) intended for presentation to humans.

Context  An attribute of TopicUse whose value is an XPath pattern indicating the context where the referenced topic is used within the subtree to which the current Catalog applies.

Contribution The contribution of a Party in the scope of the creation or the modification of a news object. (Added for Version 1.2)

Contributor  An individual and/or company or organisation that modified or enhanced a news object after its creation.

controlled vocabulary  A list of defined terms and their meanings that is maintained according to a formal change-management process (see also naming scheme).

Copyright  The copyright that pertains to a news object.

CopyrightDate  A natural-language statement of the copyright date.

CopyrightHolder  A natural-language statement indicating who owns the copyright.

CopyrightLine  A natural-language statement of the copyright information.

Creator  An individual and/or company or organisation that created a news object.

CreditLine  A natural-language statement of credit information.

DataContent  The data that carries the content of a ContentItem.

DateAndTime  A formal representation of a date and, optionally, time, expressed in ISO 8601 Basic Format (YYYYMMDDTHHMMSS {+ or -} HHMM) (century, year, month, day, time separator, hours, minutes, seconds, timezone separator, hours, minutes) and usable by an automated system.

DateId  A date identifier of a NewsItem in short ISO 8601 date format (YYYYMMDD). The DateId is part of the formal identification of the NewsItem, and must remain the same through successive revisions of the same NewsItem.

DateLabel  A string representation of a date or date and time, used by human users to help identify a NewsItem.

DateLine  A natural-language statement of the date and/or place of creation.

DateLineDate  A logical represenation of the date and/or place of creation in ISO8601 Basic Format.

declaration  A string of characters within a DTD that defines a specific structural aspect of documents conforming to the DTD.

default vocabulary  A controlled vocabulary providing default meaning and permitted values unless or until overridden by another specifically referenced controlled vocabulary.

DefaultVocabularyFor  An indication that the parent Resource provides the default vocabulary that determines the meanings and permitted values of the data occurring in a particular part of a NewsML document subtree.

Delete  An instruction to delete a designated element within a NewsItem that is a previous revision of the current NewsItem.

DerivedFrom  A reference to a NewsItem from which this one is derived.

Description  A description that identifies a Topic, thereby indicating the meaning of a formal name associated with that Topic. The optional Variant attribute allows multiple descriptions to be given in the same language and meaningfully distinguished from one another.

DescriptiveMetadata  Metadata information describing the content of a NewsComponent.

Details  An attribute of the Topic element providing a pointer, in the form of a URL or URN, to additional information about the Topic.

DOCTYPE declaration  A special declaration within an XML document that designates an external file containing a DTD to which the document conforms.

DTD  Document Type Definition. This is a set of declarations that determine the structure of an XML document. The DTD may be included in the internal subset within the document itself, in the external subset within a file referenced from the document’s DOCTYPE declaration, or a combination of the two.

Duid  Document-unique identifier. This optional attribute allows an element to be uniquely identified within a NewsML document.

DuidRef  An attribute whose value matches that of the Duid attribute of a referenced element.

element  A component of an XML document. The element begins with a start-tag including the name of the element type and optionally some attributes. It may in addition contain some content, comprising other elements (known as its subelements), text, or a mixture of the two. It ends with an end-tag or, if it has no content, an additional slash at the end of its start tag.

Example:

<MyElement>some text<EmptyElement/></MyElement>

Here, an element of type MyElement contains some text and an element of type EmptyElement.

element type  A category of XML element, differentiated by the name that appears in the start and end tags. Elements of a given element type must comply with the structural rules defined in the declarations for that element type within the DTD or schema.

encoding  The rules to be applied when interpreting the data contained within a data object. Examples of encoding are ASCII, UTF-8, UTF-16, base64, uuencode, zip. An XML file may use any of these encodings, which determine the rules that enable the byte stream to be translated into a character stream.

Encoding  The encoding of the data comprising the content of a ContentItem.

EndDate  A natural-language statement of the date at which specified usage rights come to an end.

entity  A data object that can be included by reference in an XML document. The entity may be a special character referenced by its character number, a string of text defined in a declaration in the DTD or schema, or an external file containing either text or some other kind of data, which may include binary data such as audio, video or images.

entity reference  A string of characters in an XML document that serves as a pointer to an entity, which is included in the document in that place. For example, if “The NewsML functional specification” has been defined as an entity whose name is nfs, then in the phrase “Please refer to the &nfs; for details”, the characters “&nfs;” are an entity reference, and the phrase represented is in fact “Please refer to the NewsML functional specification for details”.

equivalents  News objects between which a choice should be made, since the information they contain is equivalent.

EquivalentsList  An attribute of a NewsComponent that indicates whether the news objects contained within it are equivalents to one another in content and/or meaning – or whether they are complements.

Essential  An attribute of a NewsComponent that indicates whether the provider considers that this NewsComponent is essential to the meaning of the NewsComponent within which it is contained.

Euid  Element-unique identifier. This is an optional attribute on every NewsML element type. It allows an element to be uniquely identified among others of the same element type within the same parent element.

external subset  A set of declarations governing an XML document's structure and contained within a DTD file referenced from the document’s DOCTYPE declaration.

FileName  The suggested or actual storage file name for a NewsItem.

FirstCreated  The date and, optionally, time at which a NewsItem was first created, expressed in ISO 8601 Basic Format.

formalname  An entity consisting of FormalName, Vocabulary and Scheme attributes. FormalName consists of a string of characters whose meaning is determined by a controlled vocabulary. The Vocabulary attribute, if present, provides a pointer to a TopicSet which is the controlled vocabulary that can be used to resolve the meaning of the FormalName. The Scheme attribute, if present, serves to distinguish which of possibly multiple naming schemes in the controlled vocabulary is the one that governs this FormalName.

FormalName  A string of characters whose meaning is determined by a naming scheme within a controlled vocabulary. The controlled vocabulary may (but is not required to) take the form of a NewsML TopicSet.

format  The file type used to carry the information contained in a data object. The format determines what applications are capable of processing, interpreting or rendering the object. Examples of format are GIF, JPEG, WAV, Microsoft Word and XML.

Format  An indication of the format of a ContentItem.

fragment identifier  That part of a URL or URN that identifies a location or substring within the identified resource. It is separated from the main part of the URL or the URN by a # character.

FutureStatus  An indication of the status a NewsItem will have at a specified future date.

Genre  An indication of the Genre of a NewsComponent.

Geography  A natural-language statement of the geographical areas or areas to which specified usage rights apply.

HeadLine  A displayable headline.

HowPresent  An indication of the way in which a piece of metadata applies.

Href  An attribute that serves as a pointer to information elsewhere in a NewsML document or in some external resource.

Identification  Metadata that is useful in identifying a NewsItem. It comprises a NewsIdentifier, an optional NameLabel and DateLabel and an optional and repeatable Label.

IETF  Internet Engineering Task Force

Importance  A rating of the importance the party assigning a piece of metadata attaches to it.

inclusion by reference  The use within a document of a pointer to a data object in place of the object itself. This mechanism makes it possible to send large NewsML documents by transmitting only a few characters. Some of the characters transmitted will be pointers, which may be replaced by the objects themselves when the NewsML document is interpreted or used.

InsertAfter  An instruction to insert content after a designated element within a NewsItem.

InsertBefore  An instruction to insert content before a designated element within a NewsItem.

Instruction  An instruction from a news provider to the recipient of a NewsItem.

internal subset  A section of an XML document containing some or all of the declarations that define the document’s structure. Those declarations that are not in the internal subset will be in the external subset.

IPTC  International Press Telecommunications Council

KeywordLine  A displayable set of keywords relevant to a news object. This can be used by a NewsML system to assist manual or automated searches.

Label  A human-readable label for a NewsItem.

LabelText  The text that constitutes a Label of a given LabelType.

LabelType  A user-defined type of Label. The value of the FormalName attribute is a formal name for the LabelType.

Language  An identifier of the, or a, language used in a content item.

Location  An identifier for a physical location significant to the content of a NewsItem.

Limitations  A natural-language statement of the terms and conditions that apply to the specified usage rights.

media type  The type of medium through which the information contained in a data object is presented to humans. Examples of media type are video, audio, raster image, vector graphic and text.

Property  An indication of the media type of a ContentItem.

metadata  Data associated with a data object with the intent of enabling a system to handle that data object appropriately. The system may be a computer application, a business process handled by human beings, or some combination of the two.

Metadata  A container for a user-defined type of metadata.

MetadataType  An indication of the type of metadata that is represented by the Property elements within this Metadata element.

MIME  Multipart Internet Mail Extension. This is a formal specification from IETF, providing a mechanism for specifying the format of data objects to be transmitted over the Internet, in order to allow them to be associated with applications that are capable of interpreting, processing or rendering them.

MIME-type  A specific string of characters that identifies the format of a data object in order to associate it with an application capable of interpreting, processing or rendering it. The IETF holds a register of standard MIME-types. Additional MIME-types may be user-defined.

MimeType  An indication of the MIME-type of a ContentItem.

NameLabel  A string used by human users as a name to help identify a NewsItem.

naming scheme  A set of names or codes with known meanings.

news object  One of the main constituents of NewsML documents. The different kinds of news object are NewsEnvelope, NewsItem, NewsComponent and ContentItem.

NewsComponent  A container for news objects, used to identify the role of news objects in relation to one another, and to ascribe metadata to them.

NewsEnvelope  Information about the transmission of one or more NewsItems as a NewsML document.

NewsIdentifier  A globally unique identifier for a NewsItem. A 4-part identifier comprising a ProviderId, a DateId, a NewsItemId, and a RevisionId - and a PublicIdentifier that concatenates all four of these subelement components into a single string.

NewsItem  A meaningful item of news. This will be an XML element type within NewsML documents. A NewsItem may be simple or complex, and may be in any medium or combination of media. What distinguishes it as a NewsItem is the fact that it is a managed set of information representing a point of view, at a given time, on some event or events. This requires it to have, as a minimum, sufficient metadata to relate it to a time and to a source (person or organisation) whose point of view it represents.

NewsItemId  A unique identifier for the NewsItem, determined by the provider, for a given NewsItem. It is for the provider to determine what constitutes the identity of a NewsItem, and on the basis of this, to allocate NewsItemIds in a controlled manner.

NewsItemRef  A pointer to an external NewsItem that is deemed to replace the NewsItemRef element.

NewsItemType  An indication of the type of a NewsItem.

newsline  A special kind of news metadata comprising text intended to provide users with a key item of information about the NewsItem to which it relates. The information conveyed in a NewsLine may duplicate part of the information conveyed by the NewsItem itself or some of its other news metadata. Examples of NewsLine are HeadLine and ByLine.

NewsLine  A newsline of a type not included in the NewsML specification.

NewsLines  A container for all the NewsLines that a NewsComponent has.

NewsLineText  The text of a newsline of user-defined type. There may be more than one NewsLineText element in a given NewsLine, distinguished by language.

NewsLineType  An indication of a user-defined NewsLine type.

NewsManagement  Information relevant to the management of a NewsItem.

NewsML  The root element of a NewsML document. A NewsML document must contain a NewsEnvelope and one or more NewsItems, and may include a Catalog element and a TopicSet element.

NewsProduct  An identifier for a product to which all the NewsItems in a NewsML document belong.

NewsService  An identifier for a service to which all the NewsItems in a NewsML document belong.

notation  A named association between a piece of data and an application capable of interpreting, processing or rendering it. This is a formal construct defined in the XML specification.

Notation  An indication of the notation of a ContentItem.

OfInterestTo  An indication of the target audience of a NewsItem.

Origin  A wrapper for all or part of the text of a piece of text, which provides a pointer to an item of data corresponding formally to what is being described here in natural language.

Party  An indication of the person, company or organisation that has a particular relationship to this NewsItem in the news workflow.

pointer  A string of characters whose purpose is to identify a data object, either for the purposes of creating a link to it, or for the purposes of including the object itself in a document without having to send the object itself every time the document is transmitted.

PreviousRevision  The value of the RevisionId of the previous revision of the current NewsItem. The value of the PreviousRevision attribute must be equal to the content of the RevisionId element of the NewsItem’s previous revision, if there is one, and 0 if the NewsItem has no previous revision.

Priority  An indication of the priority notation of a NewsItem.

Property  A property of a NewsComponent or of a Topic. The property has a name and either a simple Value or a complex value consisting of a set of further properties. The Value attribute provides a string representation of the value of the property, while the ValueRef attribute points to the value, either in a Topic or any other piece of data. The AllowedValues attribute, if present, points to a controlled vocabulary delimiting the set of allowed values for the property.

Provider  An individual and/or company or organisation that releases a news object for publication.

ProviderId  A unique identifier for the news provider that produced the NewsItem. It should be an Internet domain name -- and may include a subdomain name -- that is owned by the provider at the date identified by the DateId subelement of the NewsIdentifier, or the name for the provider drawn from a controlled vocabulary.

public identifier  A string identifier for a resource, drawn from a controlled vocabulary, or using a controlled syntax.

PublicIdentifier  A public identifier for a NewsItem (in the sense defined by the XML 1.0 Specification) for a NewsItem.

Rank  An integer, serving to prioritise among BasisForChoice elements within a NewsComponent. BasisForChoice elements with a smaller Rank number take priority over those with a larger Rank number.

raw data  Data whose structure is not defined by NewsML, and which therefore needs to be passed by the NewsML application to another application or to the user for interpretation or processing.

Relevance  An indication of the relevance of a NewsItem to a given target audience.

Repeat  An attribute of TransmissionId, which distinguishes a repeat from an earlier transmission.

Replace  An instruction to replace a designated element within a NewsItem.

Resource  An indication of where a given resource can be found, and whether it is to be used as the default vocabulary for certain formal names within the current subtree of a NewsML document.

RevisionHistory  A pointer to a file containing the revision history of the NewsItem.

RevisionId  A positive integer indicating which Revision of a given NewsItem this is. It is the responsibility of providers to ensure that any two data objects carrying the same ProviderId, DateId, and NewsItemId are identical in content. If a NewsItem is republished after a change, however slight, a new RevisionId with a larger integer value should be ascribed to the new version.

RevisionStatus  Indicates the status that previous revisions how have as a result of the release of the current revision. The optional Revision attribute is an integer, equal to the RevisionId of the revision in question. If it is not present, then the status applies to all previous revisions.

RightsHolder  A string of text indicating who has the usage rights, optionally enriched with pointers to further information about the relevant people, companies or organisations.

RightsLine  A displayable version of rights information. Note that this is distinct from copyright information. Copyright information is about who owns a news object; rights information is about who is allowed to use it, in what way and under what circumstances.

RightsMetadata  Information about the rights pertaining to a NewsComponent.

Role  An identifier of the role played by a NewsComponent within a NewsComponent that contains it.

schema  A formal definition of the structure of a class of XML documents. A schema is itself an XML document, conforming to the W3C’s XML Schema specification. It is able to specify a richer set of constraints and structural rules than those expressible in a DTD.

Scheme  The Scheme attribute serves to distinguish which of possibly multiple naming schemes in the controlled vocabulary is the one that governs the FormalName it qualifies.

SentFrom  An individual and/or company or organisation from whom the NewsML document is being sent.

SentTo  An individual and/or company or organisation to which the NewsML document is being sent.

SeriesLine  A displayable version of information about a news object's place in a series.

SizeInBytes  The exact size in bytes of a ContentItem’s inline or referenced data object.

SlugLine  A string of text, possibly embellished by hyperlinks and/or formatting, used to display a NewsItem's slug line. (The meaning of the term "slug line", and the uses to which it is put, are a matter for individual providers to define within their own workflow and business practice.)

Source  An individual and/or company or organisation that provided source material for a news object.

StartDate  A natural-language statement of the date at which specified usage rights come into effect.

Status  An indication of the status of a NewsItem.

StatusWillChange  Advance notification of a status change that will automatically occur at the specified date and time.

subelement  An element contained within another element.

Example:

<MyElement><Child/><Child/></MyElement>

Here, the two Child elements are subelements of the MyElement element.

SubHeadLine  A displayable subsidiary headline.

SubjectCode  A container for the IPTC SubjectCodes that indicate the subject of a a NewsItem, as defined in the IPTC Information Interchange Model. It consists of one or more Subject, SubjectMatter and SubjectDetail elements, optionally amplified by one or more SubjectQualifier elements.