Washington, DC, 29 June 2023— The Access 4 Learning (A4L) Community in North America is proud to announce the release of the global SIF Infrastructure Specification 3.6 enhancing quality of service and ease of use for the marketplace.
The SIF Infrastructure Specification is an open standard, which is used globally to enable data exchange, and has been rigorously tested to ensure performance and scalability. This latest release builds on the previous version, introducing technical advances ranging from detailed API documentation, OpenAPI files, as well as inclusion of additional data controls for messaging and privacy. This version provides the marketplace with several benefits including:
Error Message Extension: Since the inception of SIF 3.x the SIF Infrastructure defines an Error Message payload structure that service providers can utilize to report issues back to the service consumers. This infrastructure release introduces more flexibility on how errors can be provided to consumers by means of extending the Error Message payload structure. While the core error message remains the same, to allow for backward compatibility, there is now an option to enrich the error message to provide a service consumer with more details of the error nature.
Clear and Complete Privacy Obligation Document (POD) Descriptions: With privacy being one of the core aspects of the A4L Community, interest in the POD has been growing and with it questions about its proper use have increased. Fortunately, in our efforts to help CEDS add a privacy domain to its standards, both our Community and CEDS’ have been refining the description of each field.
SIF API – Quality Improvements: A considerable effort has been spent to improve the quality of the SIF API documentation. The A4L publishes Open API artifacts for its APIs since infrastructure version 3.4. As of this infrastructure release there are two sets of the Open API artifacts released. One adheres to Open API v3.0.3 (more strict) while the other supports Open API v3.1 (support for XML). There are good reasons to publish the SIF Open API specification in these two versions. Some of these reasons and when to use which version are detailed on the Open API Version section on the SIF Open API page.
“It is refreshing to have a release that enhances quality in multiple ways” states Joerg Huber, Co-Chair of the International Technical Board and SIF Solution Architect, Systemic Pty Ltd. “Whether you are looking to enhance quality of service on the wire or adopt modern development techniques, this is a solid release for those who demand more to consider.”
To find out more about the global SIF Infrastructure Specification 3.6, please go to: https://data.a4l.org/sif-infrastructure-specification-3-6/
To read more about the SIF API and its quality improvements, please go to: https://a4ldocumentation.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/ARCHITECTU/pages/20119553/SIF+Open+API