FISH Interoperability Toolkit

The FISH Interoperability Toolkit, funded by English Heritage and the National Trust, has been developed by the Forum on Information Standards in Heritage to assist with the process of moving information between the wide variety of information systems used to record the historic environment.

This site introduces and provides links to the main components of the Toolkit. Comments are welcome, and should be sent to English Heritage DSU. If you are interested in contributing or learning more, consider joining the FISH technical forum.

MIDAS XML

MIDAS XML is the heart of the Toolkit and is a W3C XML schema which provides a common format for the storage, processing and exchange of historic environment information. It covers all the information currently included in the MIDAS standard issued by FISH.

• MIDAS XML Schema
  • 2.0 (current version, including combined schema)
  • 1.1 (documentation)
• MIDAS v.1.1 - 2.0 Change Log [PDF, 18KB]
• Examples
• MIDAS XML 2.0 Schema documentation
• INSCRIPTION controlled vocabulary identifiers. Use these formal abbreviations in your MIDAS XML to identify the namespace - a reference to a specific thesaurus or terminology list - of your terms.

Technical Tools

A suite of online technical tools, including a Data Validator, Concordance, Geospatial and Mapping Tools have also been developed and are hosted by the Archaeology Data Service. These tools allow users to to validate the structure (Level 1) and content (Level 2) of MIDAS XML files, compare similar files for differences (e.g. prior to import), convert spatial data and map native datsets (as XML documents) to the MIDAS XML standard..

• FISH Toolkit Technical Tools

The previous version of the Data Validation Tool has been archived and is available here: Previous Data Validation Tool (documentation).

Historic Environment Exchange Protocol (HEEP)

The Historic Environment Exchange Protocol (HEEP) Web Services protocol provides a specification for IT developers to use in developing internet enabled versions of datasets ('data servers' in the jargon). It is a specification for a 'Web Service' which is a widely used IT industry standard for creating online access to data. HEEP standardises the manner in which historic environment information resources can be queried remotely, and the format in which the requested data is delivered to 'clients' (i.e. those machines requesting the data). It will also standardise how HEEP-enabled servers report their capabilities and permissions required for access, and the format in which exceptions (problems) are reported.

• HEEP specification (RC 1.0)
• HEEP schema

Data Validator maintenance tool.

This online database stores the terminology standards and processing rules that support the operation of the Data Validator. Access is limited to Toolkit Consortium members.

Documentation and presentation materials

• Documentation
  • MIDAS XML Attribute values recommendation
• Information sheets and presentations
  • FISH Interoperability Toolkit Project information sheet (.pdf 161K)
  • Building Interoperability (MS Powerpoint 615K)
  • FISH Toolkit Overview, Presented at CAA (Computer Applications in Archaeology) 2005 (Powerpoint 212K)
• Training materials and case studies
  • MIDAS XML Case Study - the English Heritage Listed Building System