Abstract

This paper describes the use of Dublin Core (DC) microformats that allow the DC Metadata Element Set to be marked up in a style commonly applied in web 2.0. Microformats allow the semantic expression inside xhtml pages to be displayed in a manner visible to the user, thereby enabling a high level of description for specific types of resources (business cards, events, etc.). This particular use of DC microformats offers great potential for resource description in general, and is especially suitable for describing bibliographic resources. Also presented in this paper is a simple way for encoding DC in microformats using the Dublin Core Metadata Gen software, as well as an application that allows information included in the microformats to be displayed using the Mozilla Firefox extension, created for this purpose.

Abstract

Web publishing is experiencing a new emphasis on publication standards. At the same time, some no-cost applications (open source or freeware) allow web publishing by people and organisations that otherwise could not afford to do so. Three of these applications are discussed: NVU, Pages and Blogger. These three applications have various degrees of compliance with publishing standards and vary in terms of ease of use. The conclusion is that sufficient technical resources and publication opportunities exist so that any person or group’s web presence is limited only by the quality of the concept and usefulness of the content.