The RIXML.org consortium has announced a version 2.0 release of the RIXML investment research specification, including a User's Guide, Data Dictionary Report, and XML schema. RIXML version 2.0 "broadens the standard by incorporating taxonomies that address fixed income, globalization, financial data, events and distribution information into the specification. The primary objective of the RIXML specification is to provide extensive capabilities for tagging any piece of financial research content, in any form or media, with sufficient metadata information to allow research users to search, sort, and filter the published research and to provide highly relevant information to decision-makers. A solution for 'componentizing' research content has been proposed for a future release of the specification. RIXML.org is a consortium of buy- and sell-side financial services firms that are committed to improving the process of electronic research distribution by creating an open industry standard. Its goal is to define an open protocol that will improve the process of categorizing, aggregating, comparing, sorting, searching, and distributing global financial research."

Bibliographic information: RIXML Specification Users Guide and Data Dictionary Report. RIXML Specification Version 2.0. June 20, 2002. 71 pages. See also the accompanying XML schema (RIXML.xsd) which represents the RIXML vocabulary. "The purpose of this guide is to outline the approach taken by RIXML.org in creating the RIXML standard and, by explaining some fundamental concepts, such as XML, object modeling, and schemas, to help readers understand the standard. In addition, the RIXML schema is described, including all attributes and elements and, where applicable, guidelines for using them."

About the RIXML schema: The RIXML.xsd file "represents the relationships and components defined within the object model. This file can also be used to validate actual RIXML instance documents to ensure that the firm implementing the specification is creating RIXML-compliant content... Each section in the documentation is made up of a package name (a name for the collection of objects that were logically packaged together). Within each package there is a description of classes that make up that package. Following the definition of any class is a listing and definition of the attributes that make up that class. If the class is an aggregator of other classes, they are listed after the attributes listing. Where an enumeration modifies an attribute (denoted by the suffix 'Enum,' e.g., 'SubjectEnum'), refer to the list of Enumerations at the end of the Users Guide..."