Peter F Brown - Information Architecture

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Professional Writing

Below are some works done as part of my professional responsibilities. The reader will usually be referred to the reference text as maintained by the European Parliament and any copy included on this site must be considered as not necessarily authentic. Although written in the course of my work, these writings do not necessarily engage the views and/or responsibilities of my employers, unless explicitly stated otherwise.

Information Architecture

Logical Documents and Representations

This paper addresses an important issue that the European Parliament identified in the course of its initial investigations of the ISO Topic Maps standard. The issue relates to guidelines for the identification of "Subjects", "Topics" and "Occurrences" in the ISO standard, and the relationship between what the Parliament calls "Logical Document"; their "representations" and manifestations. I refined and used this approach is designing the information architecture of this web site.

Object identification, persistence and addressability

This paper raised a number of questions regarding the perennial problem of persistence of "objects" on the Web, and "link rot": whereas the URI is "an axiom of Web architecture", I argeu that we need another axiom for information architecture. Conventions that equate logical objects with "physical" resource addresses at network endpoints are, I argue, doomed to fail in the long term.
Interoperability

Structure and requirements for a Unique Document Identifier

This document serves as a "walkthrough" guide for any organisation attempting to introduce a naming convention for document identifiers.

Dublin Core conference, Florence 2002

This report highlights the main issues raised at the annual Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) conference, held in Florence, Italy.
eAdministration

Que fait le Parlement Européen dans le domaine de "eAdministration" et "eDémocratie"

This article was written for the French-speaking press at the request of a Vice-President of the Parliament, and outlines very briefly the sort of areas in which the European Parliament ought to be involved in the area of eGovernment.
Semantic Interoperability

Semantic Interoperability Business Implementation Guidelines

This paper was drafted after the XML USA conference, in response to a series of coments on the need to see some management guidelines to help business managers: the complex issues of naming and design rules, object naming conventions and the management of semantic constructs need to be tightly managed by business users, and not implementers, if a coherent information architecture is to be maintained. The paper is drafted as a business plan for a project to be sponsored jointly by the OASIS eGovernment technical committee and the European standards agency, the CEN.
semantic web

European Parliament and Topic Maps

This paper highlights some management issues that I believe need to be taken on board by any organisation that wants to develop knowledge management and "semantic web" solutions. In this respect, the approach is technology neutral, and the principles can be applied whether solutions using RDF, OWL, Topic Maps, or others, are used.
XML

Chickens and Eggs, Carrots and Sticks

This is my keynote speech opening the 2002 XML Europe conference in Barcelona. After outlining some key issues that set the public sector apart from the private, it lays out a management-driven strategy for introduction of XML standards, by highlighting some of the projects being undertaken by the European Parliament.

Developing an XML Framework

This paper presents the approach to developing an "XML Framework" - a management-driven, policy framework in which the deployment of XML-centred technologies can thrive and achieve a maximum of interoperability.

Why is XML important?

This is an early paper arguing for why the XML family of standards deserve to be taken seriously, particularly by management.
Other

In praise of paper

This paper was presented to the annual meeting of the European Centre for Parliamentary Research and Documentation (ECPRD) in 2003. The conference theme was "Towards a Paperless Parliament", and this paper examines the advantages and disadvantages of paper and digital media (with an interesting twist...)
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