XHTML documents with inline, policy-aware provenance

Constructing code that aids users in making information policy decisions in a decentralized Web-based environment will require seamless integration between document content and metadata. A system of embedding and reasoning over relevant policy information will be an important step towards this integration. In this thesis I present a method for annotating XHTML documents with provenance metadata using RDFa. I present a method of performing copy and paste operations on XHTML documents that preserves this metadata. Finally, I apply these tools to the practical use case of an end user composing documents from multiple sources with Creative Commons licenses. By using provenance metadata, the user is able to combine arbitrary Creative Commons works and use automated tools to calculate the applicable license of the composite work.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2007

Author dc:creator

• Jones, Harvey C., III

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Daniel J. Weitzner.

• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/41627

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/41627