Contact: Testbed Team

Date Created: 12/01/06

Last Modified: 12/03/07

Overview

The XML Schema Quality of Design Tool (also called the QOD Tool) assists in consistently using XML Schema for the specification of information.  Consistent design of XML schemas within an organization or single integration project can reduce the number and the severity of interoperability problems.  In addition, this consistency makes the XML schema easier to extend, understand, implement, and maintain; and, it paves the way for automated testing and mapping. Applying best practices is one way to achieve this design consistency.

The purpose of QOD is to provide a prototypical environment for checking the XML schema design quality in a collaborative environment.  In this version, there is no intention to create and maintain an extensive list of test cases, although the environment allows the user to do so.   In the next version QOD will be extended to better support sharing and publication of design rules with the intention of maintaining an extensive set of test cases.

QOD is intended for both people developing guidelines for writing high quality XML schemas and those writing XML schemas. 

The QOD site contains sample sets of design quality test guidelines (aka rules) for XML schemas as well as tests for some of those rules.  As a guest user, you may use these rules to check whether a schema that you are developing or uses meets those guidelines. More advanced users may be interested in creating their own rules and making sets of rules available to their communities.