Newsletter #2
MedBiquitous Consortium Newsletter #2
28 August 2001
Published by the MedBiquitous Consortium
Contents:
- Membership Update
- Working Groups Update
- Security and Industry Relations
- Best Practices: XHTML
- Save the Date!
1. Membership Update
The MedBiquitous Consortium is pleased to have the American Head and Neck Society as its latest member. AHNS provides information and resources in the area of head and neck cancer to otolaryngologists, related specialists, and associates. They are working with CorMed to develop an interactive Web site that allows them to conduct society business, promote physician collaboration and education, and provide educational information to the public.
2. Working Groups Update
The Membership Management Working Group is well underway with its development of an XML member profile for professional medical societies. Once this profile is developed, it will make exchanging member information with publishers and vendors much easier. Tom Brantigan from TMA resources attended the last conference call and offered his expert opinion on membership management and member profiles.
The Content Management Working Group is busy working to develop metadata standards. Metadata is information about a document or other piece of content, and it makes searching for content on a Web site more accurate. With a standard set of metadata elements and concepts from the National Library of Medicine's Unified Medical Language System, searching for medical information on your society's Web site will bring you what you are looking for!
3. Security and Industry Relations
The MedBiquitous Consortium is preparing to convene two more working groups. The Security working group will focus on ways to make MedBiquitous applications highly secure. They will also develop security policies for society Web sites. The Industry Relations working group will create XML standards and software requirements for tools that help medical professionals interact with industry in an effective and ethical manner. If you are interested in participating in either of these working groups, please contact info@medbiq.org.
4. Best Practices: XHTML
While we are building an XML vocabulary for professional medical societies, most society websites still use HTML web pages. Are you wondering how your organization will transition from HTML to XML? XHTML may be the answer. In a recent article, PC Magazine states, "XHTML is an opportunity for all Web designers to learn markup methods that adhere to standards and that ease you into the world of extensibility… Learning XHTML is extremely useful for Web authors seeking backward compatibility and future vision." For the full text of the article, see "The Fear of X" at:
http://www.pcmag.com/article/0,2997,s%253D1487%2526a%253D7243,00.asp
5. Save the Date!
The MedBiquitous Consortium will be holding an annual conference in Baltimore, Maryland on November 28 and 29. Mark your calendars! More information on the conference will be forthcoming in this newsletter.
