Skip to Page Content

Proposed Improvements to this Website

XML will help make this site more useful for you...

Future plans for this website include the use of XML to provide:

  1. An XML Sitemap
  2. An XML-based Client Information Form
  3. An XML-based Client Feedback Form
1. An XML Sitemap
The website is small and navigation is simple. There is no need for an HTML sitemap for visitors.

An XML-based site map, however, though not visible to users (Felke-Morris, 2011, p. 529), would serve to provide information about the site to major search engines (SE’s).

Google, Yahoo and Microsoft all support this XML Sitemap Protocol and actively promote it's widespread use via sponsorship of Sitemaps.org (Terms of service, 2011).

There are three easy ways to inform an SE of the sitemap: (Informing search engine crawlers, 2011)
  1. online submission;
  2. storing a “robots.txt” file on the website; or
  3. by the use of an http request.

An XML sitemap makes it easier for search engine crawlers to find and index all pages of a site – though this may not necessarily improve it’s ranking (Aspland, 2010).    Top of the page
2. An XML-based Client Information Form
New clients may prefer to complete and submit online in advance of their first appointment.

Contact details and specific health-related information could then be transferred and imported into Rebecca’s confidential client records database.  Rebecca could then be aware of medical history, reason(s) for the visit and other relevant details in advance of treatment.

The ability to create user-defined tags makes XML eminently suited to transfer health data.
(Rassinoux, Lovis, Baud, & Geissbuhler, 2003, pp.109-110, 114).

In Australia, the privacy and confidentiality of health records is mandated by the Health Records and Information Privacy Act 2002 (NSW) and a raft of other Federal and State legislation (Khoury, 2004).

One of the great strengths of XML is that it is written and stored in simple "“vanilla" text files. However, confidential personal and health-related data must be secured by encryption for storage on and transfer over the Internet (Levine, 2002, pp. 56-57).

It must be noted that XML requires additional processing to make it suitable for secure transfer.   Encrypted XML (a.k.a. “XML-ENC”) is a process specified by the W3C providing for the encryption of “an XML document, an XML element, or XML element content” (Imamura, Dillaway, & Simon, 2002, p.3).

The electronic collection and secure transfer of such information is non-trivial and potentially costly to implement. Yen et al.suggests there are risks of data corruption and “entity spoofing” associated with the transfer of XML over the internet. XML’s inherent reliance on external resources such as DTDs and XSL stylesheets underpins these vulnerabilites.  Yen et al.also suggests that these risks are increased since web servers are often out of direct control when operated and maintained by 3rd parties (Yen, Huang, & Ku, 2002, p. 357).    Top of the page
2. An XML-based Client Feedback Form
A stylised tag as an XML logoXML, with a “back end” database such as MYSQL via PHP would be an ideal method to implement a structured Client Feedback Form that would invite anonymous comment from Rebecca's past and future clients. XML tags for <topic>, <date>, <client email>, <comment> etc. would facilitate feedback reports for Rebecca's review, and would also allow this same data to be exported, filtered, imported and published on the website, perhaps as part of a “Testimonials” page.

A security mechanism should be incorporated to prevent computer programs (commonly called “bots”) from submitting bogus comments.  

For example, visitors could be required to complete a CAPTCHA test to gain access to the feedback form.

(“CAPTCHA” stands for “Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart”)    Top of the page
References
Aspland, G. (2010). When NOT to use XML Site maps eVision Online Marketing Blog Retrieved May 26, 2011, from
http://www.evisionsem.com/blog/2010/05/19/xml-sitemaps/
Felke-Morris, T. (2011). Web development and design foundations with XHTML (5th ed.). Boston,Mass.: Pearson.
Imamura, T., Dillaway, B., & Simon, E. (2002). XML Encryption Syntax and Processing D. Eastlake & J. Reagle (Eds.), W3C Recommendation Retrieved May 26, 2011, from
http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlenc-core/
Informing search engine crawlers. (2011) Retrieved May 26, 2011, from sitemaps.org website
 http://www.sitemaps.org/protocol.php#informing
Khoury, R. (2004). NSW Introduces health records and information privacy law. Journal of the Australian Traditional-Medicine Society, 11(1), 29-30. Retrieved from
http://www.atms.com.au/news/NSW%20Health%20Records%20and%20Privacy%20Law%20by%20Raymond%20Khoury.pdf
Levine, J. C. (2002). Safety and security of patient data on the Internet. [Article]. Minimally Invasive Therapy & Allied Technologies, 11(2), 55-59. doi: 10.1080/136457002753632466 available at
http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.1080/136457002753632466
Rassinoux, A.-M., Lovis, C., Baud, R., & Geissbuhler, A. (2003). XML as standard for communicating in a document-based electronic patient record: a 3 years experiment. International Journal of Medical Informatics, 70(2-3), 109-115. available at
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1386505603000455
Terms of service. (2011) Retrieved May 26, 2011, from sitemaps.org website
http://www.sitemaps.org/terms.php
Yen, D. C., Huang, S.-M., & Ku, C.-Y. (2002). The impact and implementation of XML on business-to-business commerce. Computer Standards & Interfaces, 24(4), 347-362. doi: 10.1016/s0920-5489(02)00019-3 available at
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0920548902000193