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	ODM Task Force Releases the Final Draft of ODM 1.2
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			7-Jan-2004

Today, the ODM task force is releasing its final draft of the ODM 1.2
standard.  This draft (draft 1.2.2) is a minor revision of the previous
public draft (draft 1.2.0, posted 9 Jul 2003).

Changes have been made to correct errors, and to clarify intended usage.
Some notational changes were made to avoid bugs in commonly used XML tools.


Changes in Semantics or Intended Use
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    The xml:lang attribute has been made optional in TranslatedText.

    The Description attribute has been made optional in MetaDataVersion.

    The EditPoint attribute has been made optional in AuditRecord.

    The UsedImputationMethod attribute has been made optional in
    AuditRecord.

    A schemaLocation hint has been added for the XML namespace.

    The text occasionally implied that ItemGroups can only occur inside
    Forms.  This is incorrect.  ItemGroups can also occur within
    ReferenceData.  The offending text has been corrected.

    References to SDS version 2.0 has been changed to just reference SDS.
    Thus, future additions to SDS codelists can be used in ODM files without
    needing an update of the ODM standard.

    The need for Item data values and datatypes to match has been made more
    explicit.

    The DOCTYPE declaration in an example has been removed.


Notational Changes (no semantic effect)
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    In the XML schema, the namespace prefix x has been changed to xs to
    conform to conventional usage.

    In defining several data formats, the \d form has been replaced by a
    digit range [0-9], and the character set [+-] has been replaced by
    (\+|-).

    The XML schema has been modified to support extensions to all elements and
    attributes.	Please see section 2.4 of the specification for a discussion of
    compliance requirements vendor extensions.


Text Improvements
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    A note has been added clarifying that dates and times are exact.  Partial
    dates and times are a topic for the future.

    A note has been added explaining the use of the EditPoint attribute.

    The text defining ImputationMethod has been clarified.

    Several gramatical errors were corrected.