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A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Interoperability? We Must Have QA!
Brian KellyUKOLNUniversity of BathBath
Email:[email protected]
URL:http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/qa-focus/
UKOLN is supported by:
About This Talk
This talk describes the work of the JISC-funded QA Focus:
• About the project• The QA methodology• QA Focus resources• Relevance to the archives
sector
A brief description of UKOLN will also be given
About This Talk
This talk describes the work of the JISC-funded QA Focus:
• About the project• The QA methodology• QA Focus resources• Relevance to the archives
sector
A brief description of UKOLN will also be given
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/meetings/archivists-2004-11/http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/meetings/archivists-2004-11/
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
2
About Me / About UKOLN
About Me:• UK Web Focus: Web advisory post• Long-standing involvement with Web • Based at UKOLN since Nov 1996• UKOLN’s Policy & Advice Team leader • Team leader of Interoperability Focus team
UKOLN:• National centre of expertise in digital information
management• Based at the University of Bath• Funded by JISC and MLA to support the higher &
further education communities & cultural heritage sector
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A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
3
UKOLN and Cultural HeritageUKOLN:
• Long-standing involvement in support for Higher Education & Public Library sector
• Have recently strengthened its Interoperability Focus team
• Due to changes in funding bodies increasingly working with:
• Further Education• Museums, Libraries and Archives
• Examples:• Workshops for MLA Regional Agencies• Participations at key national events e.g. mda
conferences, Museums & Web conference, …• Provided (with AHDS) the Technical Advisory
Service for the NOF-digitise programme• …
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A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
4
Supporting Digital Library ProgrammesUKOLN has long-standing involvement in support for national digital library programmes:
• JISC's eLib programme (from about 1995-2000): development of eLib Standards document, hosting eLib central Web site, …
• The NOF-digitise programme: (2002-2004): development of NOF-digi Standards document, providing NOF-digi Technical Advisory Service, …
• JISC 5/99, X4L, FAIR (and other) programmes: (2002-2004): development of QA framework by the QA Focus project
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A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
5
Promoting Open Standards
We have advocated use of open standards:• To provide application-independence – remember
when documents were trapped into particular word processing software
• To provide platform-independence – allowing migration across PCs, Macs, Unix boxes, PDAs, etc.
• To support interoperability – allowing data to be integrated across systems
• To provide long term access to data – avoiding the digital dark ages
• To provide a coherent architectural model – which allows for evolution and integration
• To provide an open marketplace – allowing users to choice their preferred solution
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A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
6
Not As Easy As It Seems
Problems encountered:• What are open standards?
PDF, Java, Flash, MS Word, …
• Advantages of proprietary formats• Open standards:
• May not be used correctly (cf over 90% of HTML pages don't comply with standard)
• May not take off (cf. OSI & Coloured Books)• May be difficult to understand or require technical
expertise not readily available (cf RDF) • May change in light of implementation experiences
(wait until version 3?)
In light of such issues should we (a) leave it to the marketplace;
(b) have greater policing (penalty clauses for non-compliance or (c) develop an alternative approach
In light of such issues should we (a) leave it to the marketplace;
(b) have greater policing (penalty clauses for non-compliance or (c) develop an alternative approach
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A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
7
Support For Digital Library Programmes The approaches taken in JISC’s digital library programmes includes:
• Use of open standards to ensure interoperability, wide accessibility and interoperability and long term access to resources
• Advice provided by funders covering reporting processes, project management, evaluation, sustainability, …
• Peer support infrastructure implemented to support sharing & collaboration (e.g. mailing lists for techies)
• No formal checking of compliance with technical standards and best practices
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A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
8
Stronger Policing?
A lack of formal compliance checking:• Sensible in eLib days when standards still being
developed (Gopher anybody?)
Nowadays:• Web and XML acknowledged as key technologies• We’re no longer building self-contained solutions• Interoperability is key• Funders seek to ensure deliverables can be
repurposed
But:• Is a formal compliance checking service
appropriate?
Dig
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Lib
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A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
9
NOF-digitise Experience
NOF-digitise:• Lottery-funded programme to digitise cultural
heritage resources• Technical advice provided by UKOLN and AHDS• Compliance checking provided by BECTa
Comments:• Formal compliance checking probably needed
due to lack of experience by many projects• Compliance checking can be expensive • Compliance may be regarded as being imposed • Importance of open standards may not be
embedded within organisations• Approach is alien to culture within HE
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NOF-digi TAS Web site
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
10
QA Focus
JISC:• Issued ITT for a “Digitisation and QA Focus” post
to support JISC’s 5/99 programme in 2001• Remit to develop QA methodology to ensure
project deliverables interoperable, accessible, …QA Focus:
• UKOLN and TASI proposal accepted by JISC• After first year provided by UKOLN and AHDS• 1 FTE split across two services• Built on UKOLN’s & AHDS’s experiences with
NOF-digi Technical Advisory Service• Addressed various technical areas including:
• Digitisation Web / Access Metadata
• Software Service Deployment ...
QA
Fo
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A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
11
A QA Approach
The approach taken by QA Focus was developmental:• Seek to ensure projects understand importance
of open standards• Encourage a culture of sharing experiences and
best practices• Appreciate difficulties projects may experience in
implementing standards and best practices• Develop a self-assessment approach for
monitoring compliance• Publish brief focussed advice for projects• Commission case studies from projects
QA
Fo
cus
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
12
Why Do Things Go Wrong?
Networked services may go wrong (i.e. fail to be functional, widely accessible or interoperable) for a variety of reasons:
• Failure to understand the need for standards• Failure to use appropriate standards• Failure to use appropriate technical architecture• Failure to test • Failure to embed best practices • …
In addition there may be non-technical reasons (lack of resources, poor management, etc.) Such issues were out-of-scope for QA Focus – but there are overlaps with addressing technical problems
QA
Fo
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A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
13
Addressing These Issues
QA Focus sought to address these issues by providing brief focussed advice on:
• The importance of standards in general & an appreciation of standards in particular areas (e.g. Web, metadata, …)
• The pros and cons of particular architectural frameworks
• The importance of checking compliance and advice of different approaches to checking
But it's easy to provide advice. How do we ensure that the advice is actually implemented?
But it's easy to provide advice. How do we ensure that the advice is actually implemented?
QA
Fo
cus
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
14
QA Methodology
We developed a light-weight QA methodology based on documented policies & systematic compliance checking
Del
iver
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Policy: Web Standards Standard: XHTML 1.0 and CSS 2.0 Architecture: Use of SSIs and text editor Exceptions: Automatically-derived files Checking: Use ,validate* after update Audit Trail: Use ,rvalidate monthly for reports
Mechanisms should be implemented to ensure the policy is being implemented. Findings may be used in-house, shared with peers or (possibly) reported to steering groups, funders, etc.
* Example of lightweight checking tool – append ,tool to URL
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
15
Selection of Standards
Standards are important but may be immature, fail to take off, difficult to deploy, difficult to select, …
“Ideology Or Pragmatism? Open Standards And Cultural Heritage Web Sites” gives an approach for selecting standards
A checklist for selection of standards has been developed
An online toolkit version is also available
We envisage the toolkit supporting internal decision-making, with decisions documented (possibly for approval)
QA
Fo
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A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
16
Other Resources
We have also produced:• Over 70 briefing
documents• Over 30 case studies• A simple online toolkit
which can help projects in ensuring they have addressed appropriate best practices
QA
Fo
cus
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
17
What Next?
QA Focus project funding finished on 31 July 2004
Plans for the future:• Seeking further funding to develop methodology
in more depth in other areas (e.g. metadata, service deployment, …)
• We intend to maintain existing resources as part of our core work activities
• We will seek to embed QA in our working practices
• We intend to support QA approaches across other communities (e.g. FE & HE, museums, libraries & archives)
• We intend to make QA Focus resources available under a Creative Commons licence
Wh
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A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
18
QA For Other Digital Library ProgrammesNightmare Scenario
• Digital Library programmes in UK, EU, USA, … built on open standards (XML, DC, OAI, …)
• National developments across public sector (government, education, cultural heritage, etc.) built on similar open standards
• But standards not implemented correctly or consistently leading to problems
QA Across Digital Library Programmes • There is a need for QA in order to ensure
interoperability• QA methodology may be appropriate for national &
international DL community• QA Focus encourages other DL programmes to
may use of QA Focus methodology and resources
Wh
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A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
19
Applicability To Archives
What applicability does all this have to:• The Society of Archivists EAD Group• The wider archives community
You may be thinking:• I'm an archivist – I don't do Web sites• I use a dedicated archivist package and export data
to the Web. Is this relevant?• I work on a volunteer basis and have limited time,
resources, technical expertise, …• My wonderful CMS, Wiki, PHP scripts, … will
guarantee it all works• It sounds very interesting. I'd like to implement QA.
Will you be addressing other areas?
You may be thinking:• I'm an archivist – I don't do Web sites• I use a dedicated archivist package and export data
to the Web. Is this relevant?• I work on a volunteer basis and have limited time,
resources, technical expertise, …• My wonderful CMS, Wiki, PHP scripts, … will
guarantee it all works• It sounds very interesting. I'd like to implement QA.
Will you be addressing other areas?
QA
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A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
20
Society of Archivists EAD Group Web SiteSimple checks of Web site indicate:
• Some HTML compliance errors• Small number of broken links (including link to
"EAD Best Practice Guidelines: from the Research Libraries Group" on links page)
• CSS is fine on home page
Issues:• Broken links should probably be fixed (esp. important ones)
as this relates to the functionality of the Web site. • HTML compliance is a policy issue and is affected by tools
and workflow processes. Survey shows that some errors are easy to fix, whereas others are due to saving from MS Word document.
Issues:• Broken links should probably be fixed (esp. important ones)
as this relates to the functionality of the Web site. • HTML compliance is a policy issue and is affected by tools
and workflow processes. Survey shows that some errors are easy to fix, whereas others are due to saving from MS Word document.
QA
An
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rch
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A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
21
Checking With Limited Resources
You may have limited resources, technical expertise, other priorities, …A technical audit may still be worthwhile:
• In order to scope extent of any problems• To see if simple tweaks to publishing process can
bring significant benefits• To avoid your boss making embarrassing public
statements ("Yes we have a fully accessible Web site" – you can't comply with WAI AA guidelines if your HTML is broken)
Simple approaches to auditing:• Use of Web-based checking services• URI interface to the services• Bookmarklet interface to the services
QA
An
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A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
22
Automated ToolsQA Focus toolkit provides access to various checking tools which are freely available on the Web
Appending ,tools to any UKOLN page will un tools (e.g. ,validate)
Note also that bookmarklets are available for use in most browsers (use in Mozilla Firefox browser is shown)
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/qa-focus/toolkit/web-01/http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/qa-focus/toolkit/web-01/
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
23
You Will Want A Richer Web!
You will want a richer, more structured Web service:
• XHTML pages may display more quickly
• XML (e.g. XHTML) resources are more easily repurposed
• XHTML pages must comply with standard
RSS Example
RSS is a lightweight news / syndication standard which allows information to be repurposed (e.g. what's new pages displayed in pop-up alerts, bookmarks, email, …)
RSS is a lightweight news / syndication standard which allows information to be repurposed (e.g. what's new pages displayed in pop-up alerts, bookmarks, email, …)
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
24
QA And Metadata (1)
Metadata• Not just for resource discovery – metadata
provides the "glue" for interoperable services• Metadata is data which is used by software• If the metadata is 'wrong' interoperable services
may break• Unlike data, we don't normally 'see' the metadata
– so visual inspection, user feedback, etc. won't spot errors
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Metadata is particularly important to the cultural heritage sector, who have long-standing experience in cataloguing, developing schemas, etc.There is a need to build on this expertise to help us build richer interoperable digital services
Metadata is particularly important to the cultural heritage sector, who have long-standing experience in cataloguing, developing schemas, etc.There is a need to build on this expertise to help us build richer interoperable digital services
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
25
QA And Metadata (2)
TrainingCataloguing rulesInput validation toolsCentralised vs distributed
Data processing
Output
CMS, Wikis,PHP scripts, …
Data input
Work flowCleaning dataHandling exceptionsUnderstanding system
Compliance with output standards
Use by humans and software
Accessibility, usability & interoperability
QA Areas
QA
An
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A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
26
QA And Archives Standards
For you to think about:• Are these issues applicable to effective
use of archives standards?• Is the QA Focus approach applicable?Q
A A
nd
Arc
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A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
27
Deploying QA Approaches (1)
If you wish to implement QA Focus methodology in your organisation:
• Resources on Web site and ideas free to use• You can download and tailor content of briefing
papers (subject to credit being given) Extending the work:
• We primarily addressed Web & digitisation and just briefly addressed other areas
• We'd like to cover other technical areas• We'd welcome case studies (you explain what
you did & we promote you as good practice) • We'd welcome contributions to the briefing
documents … this helps address the sustainability of the resources
QA
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A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
28
Deploying QA Approaches (2)
UKOLN provide a Benchmarking Web Sites workshop for the MLA sector:
• Has been hosted by MLA Regional Agencies• Hands-on workshop for 12-25 participants• Enables participants to check aspects of their
Web sites, compare with their peers and learn from best practices and mistakes to avoid
• Addresses QA approaches to help implement best practices
• No charge from UKOLN apart from expenses (you provide venue and audience)
• See <http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/nemlac-2004-09/>
Would this workshop be of interest to the archives sector? If so, who could host it?
Would this workshop be of interest to the archives sector? If so, who could host it?
QA
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A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
29
Questions
Any questions?