Pilot information services for standards in information encoding (Open Information Exchange)
The Commission of the European Communities calls for proposals, in the context of the IMPACT 2 programme for the establishment of an internal information services market (1991-1995), concerning the setting up of pilot information services for standards in information encoding. Open Information Interchange (OII) is an initiative to improve knowledge of information coding standards, their use and take-up. OII covers standards including low level coding of characters and pictorial information, and higher levels of coding for documents, records and other types of information structure. These standards are of interest to users, software developers and information providers in the context of the production and interchange of technical documentation, multimedia documents and other commercial information services. In this context, the Commission envisages cofinancing projects for the creation of pilot information services in the area of OII, to improve awareness and lead to a self supporting market in information of this type, meeting the needs of developers, information providers and users. Services should provide basic information about existing standards plus new services to enable developers and users to make informed decisions and to help companies take part in the standardization process. Encoding standards to be covered are: - Basic information types (text, images, sound); - Document structure; - Presentation aspects (colour, fonts); - Advanced features for hyper/multimedia products; - Semantic encoding for specific applications (EDI, STEP) when there is interaction with more basic encoding. Different types of content and form for the information service have been identified, as specified in the call. The aim is to pilot both a news service (newsletters or journals) and a basic reference service (database, series of publications, CD-ROM or a combination of such formats). The Commission will cofinance selected projects during the first year of the service, with a possible one-year extension. After that time, projects will be expected to be commercially self supporting. Interested persons and undertakings are invited to submit proposals, in the format described in the call, to: Commission of the European Communities DG XIII/E-2 Jean Monnet building (Office C4/30) L-2920 Luxembourg Fax +352-430133190