JISC

Microformats are a light-weight approach to adding machine-readable, semantic information to web pages. This means that software can be written to extract data from a web page and re-use it in another application.

For more detail, see:

• Microformats entry on Wikipedia;
• Microformats.org website.

What microformats are used on the JISC website?

There are a number of different microformats. The JISC website uses:

• hCard - for contact details;
• hCalendar - for event information.

How do I use the microformats on the JISC website?

Before you are able to use microformats, you will need software that is able to detect and process them on web pages e.g. the Operator plugin for the Firefox browser.

Exporting contact details

On staff pages, you are able to export contact details and save them to your address book e.g. Microsoft Outlook, GMail, Yahoo Mail etc.

Exporting event information

On event pages, you are able to export event information and save it to your calendar e.g. Microsoft Outlook, Google Calendar etc.

How do I know there are microformats on a web page?

Your software will automatically detect the presence of microformats and alert you in some way. Also, look out for the 'microformat enabled' logo on pages on the JISC site with embedded microformats.