NEWSLETTER | Issue 32 2
Global Community News
SIF Infrastructure Specification 3.2( global) released by John Lovell, Technology Director
Certification News by John Lovell, Technology Director
A Shift in Scope …
( Continued from page 1)
After a year of hard work the international Access 4 Learning community is pleased to have released the SIF Infrastructure( Global) Implementation Specification 3.2! In this release we have striven to make things simpler for the Consumer while minimizing the impacts on the Provider. We hope you can see how the additional features fit our Simple, Secure, Scalable, and Standard mantra.
� Query By Example: Enables intuitive queries in both XML and JSON.
� Named XQuery Parameters:
Now you do not need an XQuery when one is a bad fit.
� Changes Since:
Get just the data that has changed since the last time it was read.
� HEAD: Get just the headers when they contain everything you need.
� Media Types Support Generalized: Move data that is neither XML nor JSON in the standard way.
� Functional Services: Infrastructure flushed out to be readily usable.
Also don’ t miss out on the new payload documentation generated directly from the XML schemas.
Open Source Direction
As we gear up for xPress Roster Certification( see page 6) we haven’ t held back bug fixes and other improvements that immediately benefit the SIF Data Model Implementation Specification( NA) 3.1 Test Suite. Whether you are gearing up for xPress or ready to test your software you will find a much-matured experience, including:
� Test Session link added for better support.
� CSQ Editor updated to handle larger objects.
� Settings changed to support larger( CSQ) files( up to 2 MB).
� Scope of testing Spring Beans updated to support more than one object type.
� Testing order reworked to reflect feedback from users.
It only gets better from here! If you would like your software to benefit from the shared quality assurance of the SIF 3 Test Harness, please consider having your organization become a member of the A4L Community.
If you are interested in participating in global discussions relating to the open source direction for the A4L Community, please get in touch. These discussions will focus on providing strategic positioning and recommendations for all A4L Community open source developments moving forward, and will cover all locales. they can once provided.
I have written here before about us collectively adding to the“ non-core competency” responsibilities to education agencies and this is now going to add to that list. On top of this is the fact that it is not clear IF additional dollars will be allocated to the local learning institution to provide these additional roles- more with less is a huge worry!
Two years ago a group of A4L Community Leaders held strategic meetings on the direction of the technical work to better support learning at the local level. While we all acknowledged the work of interoperability has not been solved since all the standards groups began in 1997 – it is time for us to“ get back to the basics”.
I am proud the Leaders have us on this path now by focusing on the local needs, making the technical work of the Community easier to work with via SIF 3x, API developments like xPress and even the Community support being provided through the Privacy Consortium and Policy work underway.
I hope the content of this newsletter lays out that plan – and tells us all we have even MORE work to do to support learning at the local level!