iiRDS – Intelligent use of information
Since 2017, one abbreviation has been appearing again and again in the world of technical communication: iiRDS.
But what does iiRDS stand for? What is iiRDS? What is it not? And how can I use iiRDS with SMC?
First things first: iiRDS stands for intelligent information Request and Delivery Standard and is intended to enable the provision and exchange of intelligent information – independent of industry and vendor. iiRDS serves as a common basis between manufacturers and customers: manufacturers can provide the necessary information to various customers, while customers can integrate information from multiple manufacturers into their systems without additional effort.
The foundation for this is a standardized and machine-readable package format. All content is literally wrapped in uniform packages, making it easy to exchange. This is achieved through the underlying metadata, which makes content semantically accessible and enables documentation to be exchanged and used across vendor boundaries.
As early as 2016, tekom established the “Information 4.0” working group with the goal of making the provision and retrieval of information future-ready. Users want to access the information they need in their specific context, in the right format, on the available device, at the right time, and tailored to their level of knowledge. In short: information should be able to be provided and retrieved intelligently. Communication between humans and machines should be kept as natural as possible.
At the same time, as digitalization progresses, interest in printed manuals with hundreds of pages is steadily declining. The economic value of the information contained in them is often not recognized. Instead, customers expect good service that helps them with their specific problems.
Intelligent information is intended to solve this problem for both manufacturers and customers and provide maximum value to both sides. iiRDS offers a shared platform for this purpose.
What should be considered when using iiRDS?
One key advantage of iiRDS is that when creating content, almost no specific requirements need to be considered. Compared to other standards, iiRDS does not impose content requirements. It is therefore not a content creation standard, which is explicitly emphasized in the specification of the standard. This means it is possible to follow another standard during the authoring process and still generate iiRDS packages from the content.
An iiRDS package is essentially a ZIP file with the following mandatory content:
- MIME type (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension), which specifies the type of files being transmitted.
- A metadata file in XML-based RDF format.
- An arbitrary folder structure with the content to be delivered, in any format.
Package generation is usually performed by the content source system. In this way, the iiRDS package simply represents another output type. Shortly, SMC will also provide the option to generate iiRDS packages. The only requirement is that the content has been tagged with iiRDS metadata.
iiRDS and Metadata
Metadata, as information about information, make content accessible by describing the usage and role contexts to which they apply. Standardized, machine-readable metadata delivered together with the content open the possibility of intelligently selecting, filtering, and assembling information.
A central component of iiRDS is the metadata model and vocabulary developed specifically by the iiRDS working group. It is based, among other things, on the PI classification developed by Prof. Dr. Ziegler at Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences and defines various groups of metadata such as information types, functional metadata, product metadata, and administrative metadata. In addition, other metadata vocabularies such as Dublin Core, vCard, and Schema.org are used to describe information in specific subject areas.
Unlike the PI classification, the use of the RDF format allows metadata to be assigned ontologically, i.e., non-hierarchically. This results in a very comprehensive model that can, in principle, be extended anywhere. It is possible to extend iiRDS metadata with custom classes and instances, while still generating valid iiRDS packages, provided only minimal technical requirements are observed.
The reason for this extensive and expandable metadata set is the goal of being industry-independent and universally applicable. If content is tagged with a metadata model accepted and understood by all, it is possible to compile supplier documentation into a complete documentation set without major effort.
In iiRDS, metadata are stored in a separate XML file using the RDF schema. References are used in this file to link the metadata to the content. This makes it possible to assign metadata flexibly and independently of file format.
iiRDS in SMC
Although iiRDS is explicitly not a content creation standard, metadata can still be used during content creation. In SMC, new objects Class, Instance and Relationship are available to implement ontological metadata models.
Once a classification structure has been created, content can be tagged with it and is then ideally suited for delivery to a content delivery portal, for example.
In our solution, the Content Delivery Server (CDS), classes and properties function directly as search criteria for faceted search, so that only filters corresponding to actual available content are displayed.
Thanks to the standardized package format, it is also possible to import iiRDS packages from different SMC instances or external sources into the CDS or another content delivery portal without having to modify the content.
Where is iiRDS headed?
Internet of Things, Industry 4.0, and digitalization are some of the biggest buzzwords of recent years. What lies behind them will strongly shape and change our lives and the way we work in the years to come. The actual product – the hardware – will in the future only be as good as the information and services that surround and complement it. iiRDS aims to make technical documentation an even more integral part of the overall product.
For technical communication, this means several things: on the one hand, the classic structure of a document will lose importance. At the same time, independent building blocks or topics will become increasingly important in order to provide information in context. At the same time, the importance of knowledge, represented by documented information, continues to grow.
Simply put, iiRDS does not aim to structure content itself, but to systematize it through metadata so that the required information is:
- in the most up-to-date version,
- in the appropriate format,
- at the right time, and
- in the right place
available or can be displayed. In this way, pure information becomes usable knowledge.