Trading Partners Agreement Markup Language (tpaML)

Marilyn Geller and Jan PetersonFaxon, RoweCom Academic and Medical Services, USA

This column brings to the attention of consortium managers Web sites that should be of particular interest.

Trading Partners Agreement Markup Language (tpaML)http://www-4.ibm.com/software/developer/library/tpaml.html

Although more focused on business-to-business e-commerce than on scholarly publications, IBM has created an XML-based specification that may help automate electronic contracts someday. IBM has submitted a specification called tpaML for defining and implementing electronic contracts to OASIS, a vendor-neutral standards body. A Trading Partner Agreement is an electronic contract that uses XML to stipulate the general contract terms and conditions, participant roles,and business processes, as well defining how trading partners interact at the document exchange level. Perhaps not useful for complex licenses, tpaML might be applicable for more straightforward Terms and Conditions.