The National Information Standards Organization (NISO) and the Open Archives Initiative (OAI) have announced the publication of the ResourceSync Framework Specification - a new American National Standard for the Web detailing various capabilities that a server can implement to allow third-party systems to remain synchronized with its evolving resources. The ResourceSync joint project, funded with support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and Jisc, was initiated to develop a new open standard on the real-time synchronization of web resources.
The ResourceSync specification introduces a range of easy to implement capabilities that a server may support to enable remote systems to remain more tightly in step with its evolving resources, explains Michael L. Nelson, Associate Professor, Old Dominion University Computer. It also describes how a server can advertise the capabilities it supports. Remote systems can inspect this information to determine how best to remain aligned with the evolving data. All capabilities are implemented on the basis of the document formats introduced by the Sitemap protocol. Capabilities can be combined to achieve varying levels of functionality and hence meet different local or community requirements.
It is expected that this new standard will save a tremendous amount of time, effort, and resources by repository managers through the automation of the replication and updating process. According to Todd Carpenter, NISO Executive Director, the end result will be to increase the general availability of content in web repositories and alleviate the variety of problems created by out-dated, inaccurate, superseded content that exists on the Internet today.
The ResourceSync specification and video tutorials on using the standard are available on the NISO website at www.niso.org/workrooms/resourcesync/.
