Current index systems are based on harvesting the network for new documents. Such documents are retrieved and their contents used to provide terms for the index. The big disadvantage with this scheme is the unreliability of the index entries produced and the lack of an authentic abstract for the item. The current Dublin Metadata Element list also suffers from the absence of the abstract. Current index schemes are relevant for resources of limited protocols and are not applicable to other resources. Another problem with some of the robot-based approaches is the unnecessary traffic on the network and lack of cooperation and sharing among different systems. Finally, the infeasibility of the existing approach becomes clear as more and more providers of information would require payments.
In the system based on the Semantic Header, the provider of the resource is the one who prepares the index information. Consequently, such index entry would be more reliable than one derived by a third party or by simply scanning a document. The inclusion of an abstract in the index entry enables the provider of the resource to highlight the nature of the subject. With a fee involved, users would not be inclined to retrieve resources with irrelevant titles. The Semantic Header provides additional details about the resource and allows users to make better informed decisions regarding the relevance of the source resource.
The system provides an expert system-driven graphical interface for the provider of the resource to produce an index entry, and have this entry entered in the index database. The expert system provides help in choosing appropriate terms for index entries such as subject, sub-subject, keywords etc. It also is responsible for verifying the consistency of the index entry and the accessibility of the resource and then for posting the index entry to the index database.
Lastly, the index database contains a number of control entries for the resource. Control entries are items such as the size of the resource, the password for authenticating subsequent updates of the index entry, and a list of annotations made about the resource by independent users.