NISO RP-X-201x

Title

A Recommended Practice of the
National Information Standards Organization

Approved Month, xx, 201x

About NISO Recommended Practices

A NISO Recommended Practice is a recommended "best practice" or "guideline" for methods, materials, or practices in order to give guidance to the user. Such documents usually represent a leading edge, exceptional model, or proven industry practice. All elements of Recommended Practices are discretionary and may be used as stated or modified by the user to meet specific needs.

This recommended practice may be revised or withdrawn at any time. For current information on the status of this publication contact the NISO office or visit the NISO website (www.niso.org).

Published by
National Information Standards Organization (NISO)
3600 Clipper Mill Road
Suite 302
Baltimore, MD 21211
www.niso.org

Copyright © 2011 by the National Information Standards Organization
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. For noncommercial purposes only, this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior permission in writing from the publisher, provided it is reproduced accurately, the source of the material is identified, and the NISO copyright status is acknowledged. All inquiries regarding translations into other languages or commercial reproduction or distribution should be addressed to:
NISO, 3600 Clipper Mill Road, Suite 302, Baltimore, MD 21211.

ISBN: to be added at publication

Contents

[Ed. Note: The table of contents shown below is “automated” and, if the appropriate Clause “styles” are used in the document, will update by selecting the contents, right clicking (or Option-click on a Mac) and selecting “Update Field”. The contents default to showing three levels of clauses and no sub-clauses in appendices—the recommended display. If due to the contents of the standard, additional levels are felt to be needed, consult the NISO editor about adjusting the contents. The inclusion of the list of Tables and Figures is optional, but recommended.]

Section 1: Introduction	4

1.1	Purpose and Scope	4

1.2	Terms and Definitions	4

Section 2: Title	4

2.1	Subclause Title	4

2.1.1	Subclause Title	4

2.1.2	Subclause Title	4

2.2	Subclause Title	4

Section 3: Title	4

3.1	Subclause Title	4

3.2	Subclause Title	4

Appendix A Title of Appendix	4

Bibliography	4

Foreword

About this Recommended Practice

[Ed. Note: Include here any background information about the project and the development of the RP that will be helpful to readers of the RP If the RP underwent a draft for comments, include information and dates about the comment period. If this is a revision, include information about the revision history. Provide a brief summary about what changed since the previous edition of the RP.]

NISO XXX Topic Committee

This recommended practice is part of the portfolio of the NISO xxx Topic Committee. At the time the Topic Committee approved this recommended practice for publication, the following individuals were committee members:

[to be added by NISO after approval]

[Ed. Note: To be added by NISO. List members in alphabetical order by last name. Add “Chair” o “Co-chair” after the names of the relevant members.]

NISO XXX Working Group Members

The following individuals served on the NISO XXX Working Group, which developed and approved this Recommended Practice:

Name Affiliation	Name Affiliation

[Ed. Note: Replace “Working Group” with “Standing Committee” if relevant. List members in alphabetical order by last name. Add “Chair” or “Co-chair” after the names of the relevant members. If members dropped off the group before project completion or were added midway through the development process, include a date after the name, e.g. “until April 2014” or “after May 2014”.

Acknowledgements

The XX Working Group wishes to acknowledge those outside the formal working group membership who contributed to this effort.

Names

Trademarks, Services Marks

Wherever used in this standard, all terms that are trademarks or service marks are and remain the property of their respective owners.

[Ed. Note: All copyrighted material used in the standard must have permission in writing to use. That permission needs to be given to NISO for retention. If something is trademarked (® or ™), use the relevant symbol at the first occurrence of the trademark. It does not have to be repeated after that. Avoid requirements that call for the use of a patented item. If it is absolutely necessary to refer to a patented item or there is any potential issue regarding patent overlap with a standard, consult the NISO office about how to handle.]

Introduction

Purpose and Scope

[Ed. Note: Include a description of the scope of what this standard covers. Optionally, indicate what is out of scope. Optionally, include a 2nd paragraph that describes briefly why/how the standard would be applied, audience, etc. as relevant.]

Terms and Definitions

The following terms , as used in this recommended practice, have the meanings indicated.

[Ed. Note: Include only terms that are necessary for the understanding of this RP. If a more extensive list of terms and definitions is desired for informational purposes, add a Glossary appendix. Every term listed here must be used in this RP.]

Term	Definition
term ABC Ed. Note: Terms should be listed in lower case unless the term is case sensitive in all uses (e.g., an element name that is in mixed case. “ABC” represents the acronym for the term, if relevant.	This sentence is a definition. Ed. Note: Do not use the term itself in the definition. Definitions should ideally be a single sentence. If additional explanation is needed, include that in a Note following the definition, as shown below. Definitions can be taken from other standards/RPs (especially from NISO) for consistency in definitions. If this is done include a short reference (e.g. standard or RP designation) as the Source and place the full citation in the Bibliography. Source: ANSI/NISO Z39.50:2003 Note: This provides some additional clarification of the definition if needed.

Title

[Ed. Note: These clauses define the RP’s recommendations. Note that an RP is not a technical report; therefore the descriptive type of information in a report is not included in an RP. For example, information regarding the process used to do testing or decide on the requirements or explanations of why a particular decision was made are not to be included in the body of the RP—just include what the actual recommendations are. If it is felt that descriptive information is important to include, it can be placed in the “About this Recommended Practic” section of the Foreword or in an informative appendix at the end.

In standards, clause requirements are expressed using the language “must” (i.e. mandatory), “should” (i.e. recommended), and “may” (optional). However, RPs rarely use “must” because everything is a recommendation, not a requirement. One exception to this is when the RP is a profile of the standard; in that case you are defining which parts of the standard are mandatory for the profile defined in the RP. Do not use the word “can” when referring to a recommendation or requirement; use “should” or “may” as appropriate. If referring to metadata or schema elements, the requirement language used is “mandatory” (or “M”), “recommended” (or “R”), or optional (or “O”). These can be appended with “if applicable” when that is relevant (MA, RA, OA). For example, a metadata element called “SpecialFormatCharacteristics” might be marked as MA, because not all relevant objects may have special formatting and therefore the element wouldn’t be applicable to all of the objects; but if the object does have special formatting then it would be mandatory to include this element in its metadata.

Embedding of URL references in the body of the text should be avoided for readability. Instead reference the title and include a full citation with URL in the Bibliography. An exception to this rule would be if the text is explicitly referring to a URL location, e.g., “The XML schema can be found at: www.niso.org/xxx.”]

Subclause Title

This clause as shown is a “parent” clause, i.e. it has “children” subclauses below it. (Subclauses may themselves also be parent clauses.) A clause does not need to have any children; it can stand alone. But ideally, if there are multiple recommendations covering different topics/issues in a clause, it should be broken down into sub-clauses for ease of readability, understanding, and reference. Clauses are done in a hierarchical numbered format as shown. The number of levels / granularity needed will depend on the content of the RP. In most cases, 3 levels are sufficient. However, some metadata or schema type of standards with hierarchical element lists may need additional levels to match the defined hierarchy.

A parent clause should never include any RP recommendations. Ideally parent clauses have no text, but if desired, a brief introductory sentence or paragraph may be included at the parent level. If a lengthier introductory discussion is needed, then make a subclause called “General” or “Overview” or something similar. When clauses are referenced in other parts of the RP (or in other documents) reference to a parent clause means the parent inclusive of all children clauses. There is no way to refer to a parent clause independent of its children. This is why no recommendations should be made in a parent clause, as there is no way to reference the parent clause separately.

Subclause Title

[Ed. Note: This is a child clause. If a child clause is included, there must be at least two children at each hierarchical level. If there aren’t at least two, then child clauses are not needed and the information should be moved to the higher level clause. An exception to this may be made for metadata or schema type RPs where the clause hierarchy corresponds to the element hierarchy if there is only one sub-level element at a given level.]

Subclause Title

Bulleted list example

Bulleted list example

Bulleted list example

Bulleted list example

Subclause Title

Numbered list example

Numbered list example

Numbered list example

Numbered list example

Table 1: Example table

Table header	Table header
Text	Text
Note: Include table notes, if applicable here in the last row of the table. E.g.: M = mandatory; R = recommended; O = optional

[Ed. Note: All tables are numbered sequentially (including in the appendices) beginning with #1. Table captions appear before the table. The table should be referenced by number in the text of the RP before it appears. If the table is very large and needs to be displayed in landscape format for readability, insert it on its own page as a new section of the document. NISO editor can help in this formatting, e.g., provide the table in a separate document or spreadsheet and the editor will insert and format as needed.]

Figure 1: Example figure
Source: XXX. Used with permission

[Ed. note: All figures are numbered sequentially (including in the appendices) beginning with #1. Figure captions appear after the figure, as shown. The figure should be referenced by number in the text of the RP before it appears. All figures should be inserted into the document where they need to appear in the text. However, a separate graphic file that is at least 300 dpi resolution and preferably in JPEG or TIFF format, should be supplied to the NISO editor. Permission in writing must be obtained to use any copyrighted figures. These permissions must be supplied to NISO to retain. Attribution and any required permission statement should be shown after the caption, as illustrated above.]

Subclause Title

[Ed. Note: Sometimes it is useful to include a number of recommendations in a clause and number each one of them for readability and referencing. This subclause shows an example of this (extracted from the PIE-J RP.

Provide the full journal title in a prominent, clear, and consistent manner on every journal content page where it is possible to control the title presentation.

Use the same journal title for all versions of a journal (e.g., print, electronic/online, CD-ROM).

Associate articles, issues, volumes, and dates with the journal title under which they were originally published. Identify all content from a former title(s) under that journal title and not the current journal title.

Title

Subclause Title

Subclause Title

Title of Appendix

[Ed. Note: All appendices should be referred to in the body of the RP and are numbered (using letters) based on the order in which they are referred to. Generally, all recommendations should be included in the body of the RP, but there may be reasons, e.g. length, display requirements, interruption of flow of the body text, etc., that may make it desirable to include certain recommendations in an appendix. An appendix may also be used for any additional explanatory information that is felt to be particularly useful to implementers of the RP. Remember, though, an RP is not a technical report so it is not necessary to provide all kinds of explanation or information resources for further learning on a topic, unless critical to understanding of the RP.]

Subclause Title

Subclause Title

Subclause Title

Subclause Title

Subclause Title

Glossary

[Ed. Note: This is an optional appendix used only if is felt that a more detailed list of terms is needed than what is included in the Definitions section of the standard. It is not typically found in NISO RPs. If used, follow the format and instructions as shown in the Definitions section. Also repeat in the Glossary any terms that are in the Definitions section, so that the Glossary will stand alone and be inclusive.]

Bibliography

[Ed. Note: Include full citations for any documents referenced in the text. Additional references for information may also be included. Citations should be listed alphabetically by author’s last name. If considered necessary (this is not generally recommended), citations can be placed in numbered order as referenced in the text using bracketed numbers, e.g. [1], and the bracketed number used as a superscripted endnote-type reference in the body of the text at the relevant location. Citations should use either the format defined in ANSI/NISO Z39.29, Bibliographic References, or in The Chicago Manual of Style. When citing URLs, state: “Available at: http://www.xxx.com Include the “http” or other prefix as relevant—more sites are starting to use the secure “https” prefix so one can no longer assume that a prefix is usually “http”.]