In the following we will discuss mainly the points 2., 3. and 4. of the mail 1 by M. Grötschel induced from the discussion about the Math-Net Page in Vienna. Beside this we have added some suggestions, which came up in (rather controverse) talks in the steering group of the german Math-Net Member Association.
The main requirements on the Math-Net Page are:
The structure of the local information is two-stage:
A finer partition of a category would result in a third level of the Math-Net Page. An additional level, however, would blow up the page with problematic consequences for the user. We therefore prefer a strong restriction to only two levels. But a finer partition could be realized on an intermediate webpage following the Math-Net Page.
Take e.g. the category Faculty/Staff on the Math-Net Page. Some departments have one directory for all members, others require to have separate directories e.g. for the academic and technical staff. This splitting could be done on a following intermediate page.
As said above, a Math-Net Page should be machine understandable and an intuitive help for the human user, too. These are two different requirements:
An identifier can be a formal or a pseudo-verbal term, e.g. <G1> or <aboutUs> for the category "About us" . Machines do not care about this difference. So it seems to us that the verbal term (taken from a nearly "common" english vocabulary) is more intuitive and has the advantage of readability of the source code for a human administrator. Verbal identifiers should be preferred.
The exact definition of the identifiers is a technical problem and hence it should be solved by TAB along the definitions od standard labels, see below.
We now discuss aspects of visibility of the Math-Net Page, in particular the labels of the categories. Of course Math-Net Member Associations (or Math-Net Member if the Math-Net Member Assosiation is not founded yet) want to provide Math-Net Pages in their mother tongue language(s) to their users. So the only condition for labels is the keeping of the definition of the category, which should be exactly formulated elsewhere. As a consequence the visible part of the Math-Net Page may look very different. There is no possibility and no need to prevent such a development. The mainly important and unique relation between visually different pages is given by the identifiers and possibly a set of standard labels discussed below.
At this point the concept seems to be sufficient for technical requirements and the "native users". But what about foreign users visiting the page? Our suggestion is to define a set of standard labels.
The standard labels could be made visible to users by usual technics ("mouseover" on the page or linking of a parallel page). The tool "Pagemaker" should provide a possibility to suppress the creation of standard labels, e.g. these labels may be senseless on (the different) english pages.
So a problem is left to the native english speakers of the CEIC. Is it possible to find a set of standard labels in a "common english language" (which doesn't exist, as we know) covering the categories of the Math-Net Page? Of course this problem cannot be solved by the german Math-Net Member Association. But we are hopeful, that the problem can be solved, because we all are reading and writing mathematical papers in "english". Therefore we please you to discuss and improve the proposed standard labels and the alternative terms which are listed in the table below.
The Math-Net PageMaker will be a tool generating Math-Net Pages in an easy procedure. This PageMaker has to produce metadata (the IDs) and the visible Math-Net Page. For the metadata we intend to use RDF/XML and XHTML for the visible Web-page. The Math-Net PageMaker will use the UNICODE charset to avoid problems with the different character sets. Some help to convert other character sets into the UNICODE format should be provided.
Registration of Math-Net Pages
Each institution which has installed a Math-Net Page should send an e-mail to math-net_page@math-net.org for registration. A procedure for an automatic registration will be developed. The Math-Net Members are listed in the Navigator. The Navigator provides hyperlinks from the name of the institutions to the Math-Net Page of the institution. A standard URL http://.../Math-Net for the Math-Net Page is required for gathering the information.
The left column of the Math-Net Page contains Links to the Math-Net Services. It would be important for building the Math-Net PageMaker, if CEIC could define the first Math-Net Services. Although there was no decision about Math-Net Services in Vienna, it became clear, that Math-Net should start with a small number of running services. These could be SIGMA, Navigator, MPRESS, eJournals, PERSONA MATHEMATICA and Math Links and eventually Math Events (the ACM service in France).
Table of Standard Labels (CEIC should approve the proposal)
| Main Group | Proposed standard label for the category |
Alternative Names of label |
Proposals by CEIC | |
| General | ||||
| About us | About, Mission | |||
| Organizational | Structure | |||
| Beginners Guide | ||||
| Math and School | ´ | |||
| Service for visitors | ||||
| Persons | ||||
| Faculty / Staff | ||||
| Students | ||||
| Associates / Visitors | Guests | |||
| News | ||||
| Schedule of Events | Calendar of Events | |||
| Communications | News, Announcements | |||
| Positions | Jobs, Openings, Vacancies | |||
| Research | ||||
| Research Groups | ||||
| Preprints Publications | e-prints | |||
| Projects | ||||
| Software | ||||
| Teaching | ||||
| Curricula | Course Plan, Seminar Programmes | |||
| Lectures | Scripts | |||
| Course Materials | ||||
| Information Services | ||||
| Libraries | Library Services | |||
| Journals | ||||
| Bibliographic Search | ||||