3. Schema overview

All AKOMA NTOSO documents share the same root element <akomantoso>, under which the specific document type is selected. The single root element follows a specific design pattern 'Universal root' aimed at better identification of the root and separation of namespace and schema declaration (available in the root) and meaningful attributes (available in the document type element).

The schema starts with a few <group>s and <attributeGroup>s used throughout the schema for content models and types. They are followed by common simple types (mostly enumerations of string values) and complex types. Complex types in this sections include those supporting four of the five main content model patterns used throughout this schema: hierarchy (a hierarchy of nested elements with number and titles), blocks (a sequence of block elements - e.g., paragraphs) used within containers either with required or optional identifiers, inline (the content model for all mixed model elements such as paragraphs), and marker (zero length elements characterized by their attributes) either with required or optional identifiers. The fifth content model pattern, container, has no common form, but lists different elements in different orders, and individual container-like complex patterns are spread throughout the schema. Content model patterns are described in section 4.2.

Elements are organized in meaningful sections:

• The root element <akomantoso>

• The document elements, one for each document type (<act>, <bill>, <doc>, <report> and <debaterecord>), that share one of the three document formats: &HierarchicalStructure; (that has an explicit hierarchy inside), &OpenStructure;, that allows basically everything inside, and &DebateStructure;, a slightly hierarchical structure for debaterecord and reports.

• The container elements, one for each main part of the above mentioned structures, except for meta, described in the apposite section.

• The hierarchical elements, listing the main elements that are used in the full hierarchy of nested structures of acts and bills, as well as <heading>s, <num>s and <subtitle>s.

• Elements for parliamentary debates, particularly <subdivision>, <speech>, <question> and elements for open structures, particularly <item>.

• AKOMA NTOSO specific block and inline elements, including the table of content (<TOC>), the normative references (<ref>, <mref>, <rref>), the defined term in a definition (<def>) the note marker (<noteref>) pointing to an editorial note placed out of line (in the meta section), the recorded time of a spoken remark (<recordedTime>), the container for amendments (<mod>, <mmod>, <rmod>) and of two types of amendment quoted fragments: simple text fragments (such as a few words inside quotes) or full structures (such as an entire part or a section). .

• Generic elements: the list of available generic elements (one for each of the five main patterns for content models), explained in detail in section 6.

• HTML elements: the list of elements, directly derived from HTML, used to provide for presentation-oriented, rather than semantic-oriented, markup within AKOMA NTOSO documents. They form a very strict simplification of the HTML language, but allow for many useful structures inside an act. HTML elements and how to use them in AKOMA NTOSO are described in section 7.

• Metadata elements provide a location for all relevant information about a AKOMA NTOSO document that does not belong to its actual content. Metadata thus are all, by definition, editorial additions to the text as originally composing the document. Metadata are described in section 8.  

In this release the AKOMA NTOSO 1.0 schema contains a full total of 154 elements, of which 77 specific to the AKOMA NTOSO vocabulary, 6 generic elements, 14 HTML elements, and 57 metadata elements