http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/meetings/archivists-2004-11/
Interoperability?
We Must Have QA!
Brian Kelly
UKOLN
University of Bath
Bath
Email:
B.Kelly@ukoln.ac.uk
URL:
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/
qa-focus/
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
UKOLN is supported by:
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Background
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
A centre
of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Background
3
UKOLN and Cultural Heritage
UKOLN:
• 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
• … in digital information management
A centre of expertise
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Background
Supporting Digital Library
Programmes
UKOLN 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
A centre of expertise in digital information management
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www.ukoln.ac.uk
Open Standards
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
A centre of expertise in digital information management
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www.ukoln.ac.uk
Open Standards
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?)
6
In light of such issues should we (a) leave it to the marketplace;
(b) have greater policing (penalty clauses for non-compliance
of expertise an
in digital
information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
orA centre
(c) develop
alternative
approach
Digital Library programmes
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
A centre of expertise in digital information management
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www.ukoln.ac.uk
Digital Library programmes
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?
A centre of expertise in digital information management
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www.ukoln.ac.uk
Digital Library programmes
NOF-digitise Experience
NOF-digitise:
• Lottery-funded programme to digitise cultural
heritage resources
NOF-digi TAS Web site
• 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
A centre of expertise in digital information management
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www.ukoln.ac.uk
QA Focus
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
• Software
 Web / Access
 Service Deployment
A centre of expertise in digital information management
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 Metadata
 ...
www.ukoln.ac.uk
QA Focus
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
A centre of expertise in digital information management
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www.ukoln.ac.uk
QA Focus
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
A centre of expertise in digital information management
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www.ukoln.ac.uk
QA Focus
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?
A centre of expertise in digital information management
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www.ukoln.ac.uk
Deliverables
QA Methodology
We developed a light-weight QA methodology based on
documented policies & systematic compliance checking
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 inhouse, shared with peers or (possibly) reported to
steering groups, funders, etc.
* Example
ofof lightweight
checking
tool – append ,tool
to URL
A centre
expertise in digital information
management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
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QA Focus
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 decisionmaking, with decisions
documented (possibly for
approval)
A centre of expertise in digital information management
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www.ukoln.ac.uk
QA Focus
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
A centre of expertise in digital information management
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www.ukoln.ac.uk
What Next?
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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
A centre of expertise in digital information management
under a Creative Commons licence www.ukoln.ac.uk
What Next?
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QA For Other Digital Library
Programmes
Nightmare 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 andwww.ukoln.ac.uk
resources
A centre of
expertise
in digital
information
management
QA And Archives
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?
A centre of expertise in digital information management
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www.ukoln.ac.uk
QA And Archives
Society of Archivists EAD Group
Web Site
Simple 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.
A centre
of expertise
in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
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QA And Archives
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
A centre of expertise in digital information management
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www.ukoln.ac.uk
Automated Tools
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/qa-focus/toolkit/web-01/
QA 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)
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Note also that
bookmarklets are
available for use in
most browsers (use
in Mozilla Firefox
browser
is shown)
www.ukoln.ac.uk
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
23
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,
A centre of expertisebookmarks,
in digital information
management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
email,
…)
QA And Archives
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
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
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QA And Archives
QA And Metadata (2)
QA Areas
Training
Cataloguing rules
Input validation tools
Centralised vs distributed
Data input
Data
processing
CMS, Wikis,
PHP scripts,
…
Output
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Work flow
Cleaning data
Handling exceptions
Understanding system
Compliance with
output standards
Use by humans and
software
Accessibility, usability
& interoperability
www.ukoln.ac.uk
QA And Archives
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?
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www.ukoln.ac.uk
QA And Archives
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
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www.ukoln.ac.uk
QA And Archives
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?
so,ofwho
could
host
it? management
AIf
centre
expertise
in digital
information
www.ukoln.ac.uk
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Questions
Any questions?
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