NOTE: Corrections to this posting of the NIMAS technical specifications were made on May 27, 2005. The master document is correct as is and has not been changed. The changes to this web page reflect corrections to the posting and not to the content of the document. The changes: addition of the following three elements and their definitions: <author>, <frontmatter>, and <em>.
UPDATE #1: The NIMAS technical specifications were published in the June 29, 2005, Federal Register. The version published was missing the <author>, <frontmatter>, and <em> elements and their definitions. During the upcoming round of feedback collection, the NIMAS centers will suggest that these omissions be corrected.
UPDATE #2: In response to a U.S. Department of Education the June 29, 2005 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for IDEA 2004, the NIMAS Technical Committee has recommended that the current standard which is an extension of ANSI/NISO Z39.86-2002 be updated to reflect the more current DAISY/NISO Z39.86 2005 specification. The changes to the NIMAS baseline element set are modest although additional corrections were also suggested. While this improvement seems likely, the change will not be "official" until the specification is posted in the Federal Register as part of the IDEA 2004 rulemaking process. You may review the proposed recommendation at http://nimas.cast.org/about/proposal.
UPDATE #3: A minor update was made to the specification prior to publication in the Federal Register on July 19, 2006. It reflects the recommendations of the NIMAS Development Committee regarding the content of the NIMAS fileset. Those changes are included in paragraphs one and two introducing the Baseline Element Set of NIMAS 1.1. The element set remains the same as the proposed NIMAS 1.1 (posted earlier on the NIMAS site) and includes the corrections referred to in updates #1 and #2 above.
Important Note: Section II of this report, the NIMAS Technical Specification, is no longer current. Please refer to the current NIMAS 1.1 specification for more information. (The last two paragraphs of Section I, below, have changed; the rest of the background information section and all of the glossary section remains accurate.)
The National File Format Technical Panel has identified the NIMAS as an application of the DTBook element set of the ANSI/NISO Z39.86 standard. The identification of the NIMAS as an application of an existing standard allowed the Panel to separate the DTBook element set into two distinct categories:
The ANSI/NISO Z39.86 standard defines the format and content of the electronic file set that comprises a digital talking book (DTB)" (
http://www.niso.org/standards/resources/Z39-86-2002.html). Commonly referred to as "DAISY" (Digital Accessible Information System), the ANSI/NISO Z39.86 standard provides the technical protocol for creating accessible digital versions of print works. The following section is excerpted from the DAISY Structure Guidelines (available online athttp://www.daisy.org/z3986/structure/).
The DAISY DTB is a collection of digital files (from this point onward referred to simply as "files") that provides an accessible representation of the printed book for blind, visually-disabled, and print-disabled users. These files may contain digital audio recordings of human speech, marked-up text, and a range of machine-readable files.
The structure of the book is designated by the XML tags and is accessible to the reader by use of a browser or a playback device. The DAISY DTB utilizes the technology of the Internet with some specialized applications added to provide greatly improved access to the information.
DAISY 3 supports any of the following classes of DTB:
XML provides the producer with the ability to structure a book in great detail. Compared to HTML mark-up, XML increases mark-up options and makes more detailed structure and proper nesting possible.
A DTB produced under DAISY 3 consists of some or all of the following files:
Copyright © 2002; 2005 DAISY Consortiumhttp://www.daisy.org/z3986/structure/
In addition to the extensive audio supports for textual content (both digitized human voice and synthetic speech is supported), the DAISY/NISO Z39.86 (DAISY 3) standard incorporates accommodations for other media as well. Image files, pictures, charts, graphs, tables, maps, etc., can be included in DTBs along with their text equivalents (captions, long descriptions). DAISY/NISO Z39.86 incorporates Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL), which allows for the addition of other accessible media into the DTB. For more information, seehttp://www.niso.org/standards/resources/Z39-86-2002.html#SMIL.
Because the DAISY/NISO Z39.86 standard is so complex, the Technical Panel determined that the complete standard exceeds the capabilities of publishers at this time. Consequently, the broader standard will be treated as afterwork, easily integrated at a later time by the appropriate entity.
Because the DTBook is so comprehensive, the group opted to treat NIMAS as an implementation of the DTBook standard. It is not intended to narrow the scope of the DTBook standard, but to define the minimum actions that publishers must take in order to be in compliance with the standard. Additionally, the referenced guidelines are intended to establish best practices for how the tags should be applied to instructional materials.
The Baseline Element Set details the minimum requirement that must be delivered to fulfill the NIMAS. It is the responsibility of the publishers to provide this NIMAS-compliant XML file along with a separate PDF file with embedded images for reference in creating descriptions, and a NIMAS-compliant package file.
Content files meeting the NIMAS must be valid to the dtbook110.dtd [see ANSI/NISO Z39.86, Appendix 1
(http://www.niso.org/standards/resources/Z39-86-2002.html#DTBookDTD)]. In addition, files are required to use the tags from the Baseline Element Set when such tags are appropriate. Publishers may, and are encouraged to, augment the required Baseline Element Set with tags from the Optional Element Set (see Appendix C) as applicable. For the purposes of NIMAS, appropriate usage of elements (both baseline and optional) is defined by the "Guidelines for Use" (Appendix B), derived from the DAISY Structure Guidelines. Files that do not follow these guidelines in the selection and application of tags are not conformant to this Standard.
| Element | Description |
| dtbook | The root element in the Digital Talking Book DTD. <dtbook> contains metadata in <head> and the contents itself in <book>. |
| head | Contains metainformation about the book but no actual content of the book itself, which is placed in <book>. This information is consonant with the <head> information in xhtml, see [XHTML11STRICT]. Other miscellaneous elements can occur before and after the required <title>. By convention <title> should occur first. |
| book | Surrounds the actual content of the document, which is divided into <frontmatter>, <bodymatter>, and <rearmatter>. <head>, which contains metadata, precedes <book>. |
| meta | Indicates metadata about the book. It is an empty element that may appear repeatedly only in <head>. |
| title | Contains the title of the book but is used only as metainformation in <head>. Use <doctitle> within <book> for the actual book title, which will usually be the same. |
| Usage Guidelines: please refer to Document Level Tags and Required Tags in Appendix B, © DAISY Consortium, 2002 |
b. Document-level tags (required to be valid XML)
| Element | Description |
| frontmatter | Usually contains <doctitle> and <docauthor>, as well as preliminary material that is often enclosed in appropriate <level> or <level1> etc. Content may include a copyright notice, a foreword, an acknowledgements section, a table of contents, etc. <frontmatter> serves as a guide to the content and nature of a <book>. |
| bodymatter | Consists of the text proper of a book, as contrasted with preliminary material <frontmatter> or supplementary information in <rearmatter>. |
| rearmatter | Contains supplementary material such as appendices, glossaries, bibliographies, and indices. It follows the <bodymatter> of the book. |
| level1 | The highest-level container of major divisions of a book. Used in <frontmatter>, <bodymatter>, and <rearmatter> to mark the largest divisions of the book (usually parts or chapters), inside which level2 subdivisions (often sections) may nest. The class attribute identifies the actual name (e.g., part, chapter) of the structure it marks. Contrast with <level>. |
| level2 | Contains subdivisions that nest within <level1> divisions. The class attribute identifies the actual name (e.g., subpart, chapter, subsection) of the structure it marks. |
| level3 | Contains sub-subdivisions that nest within <level2> subdivisions (e.g., sub-subsections within subsections). The class attribute identifies the actual name (e.g., section, subpart, subsubsection) of the subordinate structure it marks. |
| level4 | Contains further subdivisions that nest within <level3> subdivisions. The class attribute identifies the actual name of the subordinate structure it marks. |
| level5 | Contains further subdivisions that nest within <level4> subdivisions. The class attribute identifies the actual name of the subordinate structure it marks. |
| level6 | Contains further subdivisions that nest within <level5> subdivisions. The class attribute identifies the actual name of the subordinate structure it marks. |
| h1 | Contains the text of the heading for a <level1> structure. |
| h2 | Contains the text of the heading for a <level2> structure. |
| h3 | Contains the text of the heading for a <level3> structure. |
| h4 | Contains the text of the heading for a <level4> structure. |
| h5 | Contains the text of the heading for a <level5> structure. |
| h6 | Contains the text of the heading for a <level6> structure. |
| Usage Guidelines: please refer to the Information Object references in the Structure and Hierarchy section in Appendix B, © DAISY Consortium, 2002 |
c. Block Elements
| Element | Description |
| author | Identifies the writer of a work other than this one. Contrast with <docauthor>, which identifies the author of this work. <author> typically occurs within <blockquote>. |
| blockquote | Indicates a block of quoted content that is set off from the surrounding text by paragraph breaks. Compare with <q>, which marks short, inline quotations. |
| list | Contains some form of list, ordered or unordered. The list may have intermixed heading <hd> (generally only one, possibly with <prodnote>) and an intermixture of list items <li> and <pagenum>. If bullets and outline enumerations are part of the print content, they are expected to prefix those list items in content, rather than be implicitly generated. |
| li | Marks each list item in a <list>. <li> content may be either inline or block and may include other nested lists. Alternatively it may contain a sequence of list item components, <lic>, that identify regularly occurring content, such as the heading and page number of each entry in a table of contents. |
| hd | Marks the text of a heading in a <list> or <sidebar>. |
| note | Marks a footnote, endnote, etc. Any local reference to <note id="yyy"> is by <noteref idref="#yyy"">. [Attribute id] |
| p | Contains a paragraph, which may contain subsidiary <list> or <dl>. |
| sidebar | Contains information supplementary to the main text and/or narrative flow and is often boxed and printed apart from the main text block on a page. It may have a heading <hd> |
| cite | Marks a reference (or citation) to another document. |
| dd | Marks a definition of the preceding term <dt> within a definition list <dl>. A definition without a preceding <dt> has no semantic interpretation, but is visually presented aligned with other <dd>. |
| dl | Contains a definition list, usually consisting of pairs of terms <dt> and definitions <dd>. Any definition can contain another definition list. |
| dt | Marks a term in a definition list <dl> for which a definition <dd> follows. |
| Usage Guidelines: please refer to the Information Object references in the Block Elements section in Appendix B, © DAISY Consortium, 2002 |
d. Inline Elements
| Element | Description |
| em |
Indicates emphasis. Usually <em> is rendered in italics. Compare with <strong>. |
| q | Contains a short, inline quotation. Compare with <blockquote>, which marks a longer quotation set off from the surrounding text. |
| strong | Marks stronger emphasis than <em>. Visually <strong> is usually rendered bold. |
| sub | Indicates a subscript character (printed below a character's normal baseline). Can be used recursively and/or intermixed with <sup>. |
| sup | Marks a superscript character (printed above a character's normal baseline). Can be used recursively and/or intermixed with <sub>. |
| br | Marks a forced line break. |
| line | Marks a single logical line of text. Often used in conjunction with <linenum> in documents with numbered lines. [Include in baseline element set. Use only when line breaks must be preserved to capture meaning (e.g., poems, legal texts).] |
| linenum | Contains a line number, for example in legal text. [Include in baseline element set. Use only when <line> is used, and only for lines numbered in print book.] |
| pagenum | Contains one page number as it appears from the print document, usually inserted at the point within the file immediately preceding the first item of content on a new page. [NB: Only valid when includes id attribute]. |
e. Tables
| Element | Description |
| table | Contains cells of tabular data arranged in rows and columns. A <table> may have a <caption>. It may have descriptions of the columns in <col>s or groupings of several <col> in <colgroup>. A simple <table> may be made up of just rows <tr>. A long table crossing several pages of the print book should have separate <pagenum> values for each of the pages containing that <table> indicated on the page where it starts. Note the logical order of optional <thead>, optional <tfoot>, then one or more of either <tbody> or just rows <tr>. This order accommodates simple or large, complex tables. The <thead> and <tfoot> information usually helps identify content of the <tbody> rows. For a multiple-page print <table> the <thead> and <tfoot> are repeated on each page, but not redundantly tagged. |
| td | Indicates a table cell containing data. |
f. Images
| Element | Description |
| imggroup | Provides a container for one or more <img> and associated <caption>(s) and <prodnote>(s). A <prodnote> may contain a description of the image. The content model allows: 1) multiple <img> if they share a caption, with the ids of each <img> in the <caption imgref="id1 id2 ...">, 2) multiple <caption> if several captions refer to a single <img id="xxx"> where each caption has the same <caption imgref="xxx">, 3) multiple <prodnote> if different versions are needed for different media (e.g., large print, braille, or print). If several <prodnote> refer to a single <img id="xxx">, each prodnote has the same <prodnote imgref="xxx">. |
| caption | Describes a <table> or <img>. If used with <table> it must follow immediately after the <table> start tag. If used with <img> or <imggroup> it is not so constrained. |
Publishers are encouraged to apply mark-up beyond the baseline (required) elements. The complete DTBook Element Set reflects the tags necessary to create the six types of Digital Talking Books referenced in Section II and Braille output. Because of the present necessity to subdivide the creation of alternate-format materials into distinct phases, the Panel determined that baseline elements would be provided by publishers and optional elements would be added to the NIMAS-compliant files by third-party conversion entities. In both circumstances the protocols for tagging the digital files should conform to the DAISY/NISO Z39.86 specification. For this reason, the optional elements beyond the baseline set are included as an Appendix C, and content converters are directed to the DAISY Structure Guidelines
(http://www.daisy.org/z3986/structure/) for guidance on their use.
A package file describes a publication. It identifies all other files in the publication and provides descriptive and access information about them. A publication must include a package file to be conformant to the NIMAS. The package file is based on the Open eBook Publication Structure 1.2 package file specification (For most recent detail please seehttp://www.openebook.org/oebps/oebps1.2/download/oeb12-xhtml.htm#sec2). A NIMAS package file must be an XML-valid OeB PS 1.2 package file instance and must meet the following additional standards:
The NIMAS Package File must include the following Dublin Core (dc:) metadata:
And the following x-metadata items:
The following metadata was also proposed as a means of facilitating recordkeeping, storage, and file retrieval:
An additional suggestion references the use of—
http://www.ed.gov/admin/reference/index.jsp. Using educationLevel obviates the need for a separate field for gradeRange since dc elements can repeat more than once. A book used in more than one grade would therefore have two elements, one with value "Grade 4" and another with value "Grade 5."
A final determination of which these specific metadata elements to use needs to be clarified in practice.
The package manifest must list all provided files (text, images, etc.).
The package spine must reference all text content files in order. (Note: For purposes of continuity and to minimize errors in transformation and processing, the NIMAS-compliant digital text should be provided as a single document.)
ASCII - unformatted text with each letter represented by a number conforming to a standard developed by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) to define how computers write and read characters.
ANSI - The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) is a private, non-profit organization (501(c)3) that administers and coordinates the U.S. voluntary standardization and conformity assessment system. The Institute's mission is to enhance both the global competitiveness of U.S. business and the U.S. quality of life by promoting and facilitating voluntary consensus standards and conformity assessment systems, and safeguarding their integrity.
From http://www.ansi.org/about_ansi/overview/overview.aspx?menuid=1
DAISY - Digital Accessible Information System. The DAISY Digital Talking Book is a collection of digital files that provides an accessible representation of the printed book for blind, visually-disabled, and print-disabled users. These files may contain digital audio recordings of human speech, marked-up text, and a range of machine-readable files.
DAISY/NISO Z39.86 - This standard defines the format and content of the electronic fileset that comprises a digital talking book (DTB) and establishes a limited set of requirements for DTB playback devices. It uses established and new specifications to delineate the structure of DTBs whose content can range from XML text only, to text with corresponding spoken audio, to audio with little or no text. DTBs are designed to make print material accessible and navigable for blind or otherwise print-disabled persons. The DAISY/NISO Z39.86 standard is also known as "DAISY 3."
Digital Rights Management (DRM) - Digital Rights Management systems are authorizing technologies implemented by rights holders and/or publishers to limit the distribution and use of proprietary content. Examples of DRM systems are: encryption—securing content as a locked file requiring a hardware or software-based "key" for unlocking; watermarking—the imprinting of identifying information on digital files; fingerprinting—the association of specific user data with a particular file or collection of files. DRM systems can employ one or all of these approaches.
Docbook - DocBook provides a system for writing structured documents using SGML or XML. It is particularly well-suited to books and papers about computer hardware and software, though it is by no means limited to them. In short, DocBook is an easy-to-understand and widely used DTD. Dozens of organizations use DocBook for millions of pages of documentation, in various print and online formats, worldwide (Norm Walsh).
DTBook - An XML element set (dtbook.dtd) that defines the mark-up for the textual content of a DTB (Digital Talking Book).
Dublin Core - A set of metadata established by The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative in order to promote the adoption of interoperable metadata standards and vocabularies. The Dublin Core metadata provides a consistent and uniform means of describing resources in order to enable more intelligent information discovery systems. The fifteen elements of the Dublin Core metadata standard provide a simple element set for describing a wide range resources.
Metadata - Information that refers to one or more other pieces of information that can exist as separate physical forms. In short, data about data. Any type of description can be considered metadata. Examples include library catalog information, encoded text file headers, and driver's license data. In the information technology world the term is often used to indicate data which refers to digital resources available across a network.http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/techdocs/repository/gengloss.html
NISO- National Information Standards Organization. A committee of the United States based National Information Standards Organization (NISO), in conjunction with the internationally known DAISY Consortium, is working on a specification for Digital Talking Books. This will serve as the next generation of information technology for persons who are blind and print-disabled. At the heart of this specification is an XML DTD that incorporates the elements of structure needed to provide access to information. The specification goes on to define how the textual information can be synchronized with digitally recorded human speech through Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL), a recommendation of the W3C. The specification identifies six classes of books that have varying amounts of text mixed with audio. Most significantly, one class of book contains only text, with no recorded human speech. Access to the information would be through synthetic speech, refreshable Braille or dynamically generated large print.
Open eBook Forum (OeBF) - The purpose of the Open eBook Forum (OEBF) is to create and maintain standards and promote the successful adoption of electronic books. The OEBF is an association of hardware and software companies, publishers, users of electronic books, and related organizations whose goals are to establish common specifications for electronic book systems, applications, and products that will benefit creators of content, makers of reading systems and, most importantly, consumers. The OEBF is helping to catalyze the adoption of electronic books; to encourage the broad acceptance of these specifications on a worldwide basis among members of the Forum, related industries, and the public; and to increase awareness and acceptance of the emerging electronic publishing industry. The OEBF is composed of member organizations (each of which may have one or more representatives) and a Board of Directors. The members determine the policies and activities of the organization (from American Foundation for the Blind athttp://www.afb.org/Section.asp?SectionID=44&TopicID=16&DocumentID=371).
TEI - Text Encoding Initiative. Initially launched in 1987, the TEI is an international and interdisciplinary standard that helps libraries, museums, publishers, and individual scholars represent all kinds of literary and linguistic texts for online research and teaching, using an encoding scheme that is maximally expressive and minimally obsolescent.
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) - The W3C is an international industry consortium founded in 1994. Its mission is to promote the evolution and ensure the interoperability of the World Wide Web. Working with the global community, the Consortium produces specifications and reference software for free use around the world. The World Wide Web Consortium established the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) in 1997. Changing the web's underlying protocols, applications and, most importantly, the way content is developed, can significantly improve access to the web by people with disabilities. The WAI has working groups developing comprehensive and unified sets of accessibility guidelines for content accessibility, browser accessibility, and authoring tool accessibility.
XML - The Extensible Mark-Up Language (XML) is a standardized language for marking up files containing structured information.
The NIMAS Development and Technical Assistance Center, supported by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), works with states, TA systems, disability advocates, national associations, technology experts, publishers and content conversion houses to improve the timely delivery of high quality accessible educational materials to students with disabilities.The NIMAS Center was launched on October 1, 2004.The project officer for both the Development and TA Centers is Bonnie Jones, Ed.D. Opinions expressed herein do not necessarily represent the Department of Education's position or policy.