History of XPRL

Proposal for Formation of XPRL Steering Group

This document is a proposal for the formation of an Steering Group, a body of PR people who meet to set direction and conduct work in order to:

Bring strict rigour to the definition of PR terminology, with a view to using this terminology to enable internet-based transfer of data concerning the targeting, planning, implementation and evaluation of PR activities, between those buying PR services, delivering PR services or receiving PR services.

This work is in recognition of the fact that the Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) is gaining popularity as a means for companies to exchange financial data between stock markets, investors and interested parties, and that NewsML, a similar format for the exchange of news between news agencies, news providers and news creators, is also gaining popularity.

If the work of the Steering Group is successful, and terminology can be defined, then the work of the Steering Group should lead to:

Create a definition and schema for “XPRL”, a standard language for the exchange of data concerning the targeting, planning, implementation and evaluation of PR activities, between those buying PR services, delivering PR services or receiving PR services.

The existence of XPRL will, in itself, achieve a number of goals:

• XPRL will improve access across the internet to salient information concerning the targeting, planning, implementation and evaluation of PR activities of particular interest to the purchasers and suppliers of these services, which will lower the cost of services and increase responsiveness, accessibility and immediacy.
• XPRL will pave the way for PR reporting on reputational and relationship issues as proposed in the July 26th 2001 DTI Final Report from the Company Law Review Steering Group.
• XPRL will help the definition, encoding and reporting of results into the PR process, making it a more widely acceptable business practice and contributing to the growth of the PR industry as a whole
• XPRL will allow easy exchange of data with other key information already provided in XML format, specifically, NewsML and XBRL.

There is a step between the definition of terms and the creation of XPRL and that is to create intermediate schemas for the representation of specific data, such as audience planning (XARL - eXtensible Audience Reporting Language), media planning (eXtensible Media Reporting Language) and job costing and accounting (XPRCL - eXtensible PR Costing Language). Given the shared interest in media measurement and analysis at this time, we may:

Create XMRL (Extensible Media Reporting Language), an XML schema for the exchange of media information.

There is a much clearer and shorter term need for this kind of schema, as many companies are now providing and using media reporting data in XML format and confusion in data types is beginning to emerge. Clearing up this confusion and speeding the adoption of a common format is time-critical.

In summary, this document therefore proposes the formation of a Steering Group primarily to:

• Referee definitions on PR terminology
• Create and launch XPRL
• Create and launch appropriate sub-schemas of XPRL, such as XMRL

The remainder of this document proposes some of the mechanisms for formalising the Steering Group.

Aims

1. To act as a forum for the agreement of definitions and descriptions of key terminology in PR and reporting media activity
2. To formalise and promote these definitions to secure cross-industry agreement on their use and application
3. To promote the development of a common XML standard schema for the exchange of media reporting information between parties
4. Create and launch XPRL
5. To build a bridge between academic and practitioner computer-aided methods, practice, applications, evolution and promotion of Public Relations Media Evaluation.
6. To respond to and address issues raised by the PR community on issues to do with the "computerisation" of media measurement and evaluation

Alliances
The Steering Group shall champion the work done by the PRE-Fix initiative and seek always to support PRE-Fix standards. It will also join the XBRL initiative and contribute actively to its development. It will actively seek contributions from AMEC, commercial suppliers and academic institutions in the UK, Europe and the US,

Means
The Steering Group shall establish sub committees to conduct its affairs

Funding
The Steering Group shall open a bank account to which trustees shall be signatories. The Steering Group shall seek sponsorship from industry organisations.

Trustees
The Steering group should have trustees and we propose

Membership
Membership of the Steering group should be open to any PR, marketing, market research, advertising or other related professional interested in the subject and able or interested in contributing. Membership shall be at the discretion of a Membership Committee which shall be constituted.

Key Committee Deliverables
Web site: this will be set up and handed over to the Steering Group to manage. Underlying software to record visitors and maintain databases will need to be maintained by the Committee

Refereed Papers: The Steering Group will review papers on the subjects of media evaluation and support their publication

XMRL Schema: The Steering Group will publish the XMRL schema on the website and make it available for PR professionals to download, and run a process to keep it updated and active.

Language of Public Relations: The glossary and taxonomy including candidate metrics for the further development of evaluation metrics offers to identify metrics used across both the PR industry and much of academia, training and education.

Its purpose is to aid development of a nomenclature for the PR industry to aid its further development and offers a route through to rigor which is not always evident in some evaluation, and Public Relation practices.

Bibliography: At its core, the centre will have the established knowledge of media evaluation (a bibliography/library) and an industry wide glossary of terms (a very confusing array of terms and descriptions which runs to over 1000 different terms - a pretty comprehensive nomenclature) which will be formatted in XML through a process of on-line consultation and evolution. These two initial resources (bibliography and glossary) will be donated by David Phillips and Media Report respectively (a company in the UK) and the centre will raise commercial and government sponsorship to fund the ongoing development.

Promotion: The Steering Group shall seek to raise awareness and deliver news materials to the media in order to achieve this.

Steering Committee Staff

We propose creating a position of Steering Group Coordinator – a qualified PR post-graduate student whose task will be:

• Ensure the website is maintained with new information
• Coordinate and report on Committee meetings once every six months
• Coordinate and host two annual meetings for interested parties
• Act as administrative centre for all contributions and liaison with Committee members
• Ensure effective and active liaison with other industry initiatives such as XBRL, NewsML and AdML.