“Q-Pact” is a special form of agreement. A “Q-Pact” is an agreement about providing and accessing quality information via the world wide web. Q-Pact is also a sophisticated system for mediating, creating, facilitating, monitoring and initiating transactions for these special forms of agreement.
Web Sectors Inc. is the company that developed Q-Pact and now performs the roles of pact mediator, facilitator and monitor.. We are bound by each pact to provide the services and the cyber infrastructure that make Q-Pacts work. Our role is unique and to distinguish our role from any other we refer to ourselves as the Q-Pact Interlocutor. (which means, we keep the pact communications going and up to standard)
A Q-Pact Sector is another form of community designation on the web. Usually a sector cuts across membership in standard web communities to cull out and identify pact subscribers and users who are collaborating in exchange of information and who have particular interest in the quality of the information they provide and use.
Q-Pact Quality Tiers are levels of information maintenance and quality required by individual pacts. In order to maintain status in a pact, each subscriber must assure that theirs information is up to Q-Tier standards. One of Web Sectors’ jobs is to keep each subscriber informed about the quality of data being published on the web in the subscribers name. Users are also regularly made aware of the quality of specific subscriber information relative to the Q-Pact agreement.
Q-Pact Subscribers: A pact, like any agreement, has specific parties who are bound by the agreement to provide information via their respective web sites under a specific set of pact circumstances. These parties, bound by agreement, are called Q-Pact Subscribers. The subscribing companies, organizations and individuals are acting as legal entities that have title to their own information and are legally capable of participating in the agreement. They
1. Have possession of specific information
2. Have need of information not in their possession
3. Have recognized the importance of certain common issues
4. Have recognized the responsibility and benefits of working out answers to the
common issues.
5. Have committed to a form of collaboration governed by a Q-Pact agreement.
Subscriber Candidates are organizations and individuals that might be solicited to create or join an existing Q-Pact
Third Party Q-Pact Participants are people or organizations They are not signers of the pact agreement, but may be restricted by it. They offer services under their own reputations and contracts. Such services usually take the form of:
1. Q-Pact Sponsor Group
2. Subscriber Agent (Professional Pact Subscription Manager)
3. Web Presence Maintenance Services
4. Web Based Credential Services
5. Web Based General Information Sources
6. Web Based Knowledge Sources
7. Web Based General Services
a. Encryption
b. Secured Communications
c. National Language Translation
d. Research
8. Trade Organization
9. Professional Organization
10. Magazine/Journal Publisher
Q-Pact Users are individual people who have been granted access to pact information and, in some cases, to special Web Sectors software tools that make providing, accessing and using pact information more efficient and powerful than standard web browsing. Users may be the employees, agents, suppliers and customers of subscribers. They also may be members of the general public, as well as public and private organizations, institutions and agencies. Users may function for their own benefit, their employer’s benefit and or a client’s benefit, depending upon restrictions set for in the pact agreement. Users may also be required to share identity information in a manner similar to subscribers.
Q-Pact Sponsor is a person, organization or common body of people and organizations that comes forward to initiate or enhance a Q-Pact. The Sponsor provides input and some coordination functions prior to pact activation. The group may dissolve shortly after activation or continue on to manage certain elements of the pact. Web Sector Inc. will, at times, act as a sponsor or co-sponsor. Q-Pacts sponsored by Web Sectors Inc. are called “House Pacts” and tend to treat broad problems of broad based communities. Our Master Q-Pact Directories are typical of this sponsorship. Pacts not originated in-house are called “Ad Hoc or Custom Pacts”
Q-Pact Templates are central to Web Sectors’s ability to serve its clients. A template is a set of required information. We have templates for each Q-Pact Subscription, each Subscriber/User Identity, each piece of Information to be exchanged, each agreement affecting the exchange and each transaction initiated by an exchange. It is little wonder then that we refer to these as:
1. Subscription Templates
2. Identity Templates
3. Information Templates
4. Agreement Templates (a.k.a. The Q-Pact Charter)
5. Transaction Templates
Q-Pact Background Services are services performed by Web Sectors Inc. Some services are specific to managing a Q-Pact and some services are designed to find and develop inter-pact advantages and efficiencies. Typical of these services is the Pact Monitor Service. The Pact Monitor’s job is to perform continuous review of pact information quality and to inform subscribers when their information is due for update. Using the standards set up in each Q-Pact agreement, the Monitor informs each subscriber twice prior the respective site’s template data being labeled “dated” or “unreliable”.