A centre of expertise in digital information management Addressing The Limitations Of Open Standards...

A centre of expertise in digital information management

www.ukoln.ac.uk

Addressing The Limitations Of Open Standards

Brian KellyUKOLNUniversity of BathBath, UK

[email protected]

UKOLN is supported by:

http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/conferences/mw-2007/talk-standards/http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/conferences/mw-2007/talk-standards/

Co-AuthorsMarieke Guy, UKOLNAlastair Dunning, AHDS

Co-AuthorsMarieke Guy, UKOLNAlastair Dunning, AHDS

This work is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 licence (but note caveat)

Resources bookmarked using ‘mw-standards-2007' tag Resources bookmarked using ‘mw-standards-2007' tag


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Contents

This talk will cover the following topics:• Introduction• Standards are great • Standards don't always work • Layered approach developed by QA Focus• Application to JISC development programmes• Application elsewhere• Sustainability• Conclusions


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About Me, About UKOLN

Brian Kelly:• UK Web Focus – national Web advisory post• Advises higher & further education & cultural

heritage sectors on Web innovations, standards & best practices

• Involved in Web since January 1993• Involved in Web standards for JISC development

programmes since 1995UKOLN

• National centre of expertise in digital information management

• Location at the University of Bath, UK• Funded by MLA (Museums, Libraries and Archives

Council) and JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee)

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Open Standards Are Great …

JISC's development programmes (like others):• Traditionally based on use of open standards to:

Support interoperabilityMaximise accessibilityAvoid vendor lock-inProvide architectural integrityHelp ensure long-term preservation

History in UK HE development work:• eLib Standards document (v1 – 1996, v2 – 1998)• DNER (JISC IE) Standards document (2001)

which influenced:• NOF-digi Technical Standards (digitisation of

cultural resources)

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… But Don't Always Work

There's a need for flexibility:• Learning the lesson from OSI networking protocols

Today:• Is the Web (for example) becoming over-complex

"Web service considered harmful" The lowercase semantic web / Microformats

• Lighter-weight alternatives being developed• Responses from the commercial world

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Other key issues• What is an open standard?• What are the resource implications of using them?• Sometimes proprietary solutions work (and users

like them). Is it politically incorrect to mention this!?

Other key issues• What is an open standard?• What are the resource implications of using them?• Sometimes proprietary solutions work (and users

like them). Is it politically incorrect to mention this!?


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What Is An Open Standard?

Which of the following are open standards?• PDF Flash• Java MS Word

UKOLN's "What Are Open Standards?" briefing paper refers to characteristics of open standards:

• Neutral organisation which 'owns' standard & responsible for roadmap

• Open involvement in standards-making process• Access to standard freely available• …

Note these characteristics do not apply equally to all standards bodies e.g. costs of BSI standards; W3C membership requirements; …

Note these characteristics do not apply equally to all standards bodies e.g. costs of BSI standards; W3C membership requirements; …

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Compliance Issues

What does must mean?• You must comply with HTML standards

What if I don't? What if nobody does? What if I use PDF?

• You must clear rights on all resources you digitise

• You must provide properly audited accounts

What if I don't?

There is a need to clarify the meaning of must and for an understandable, realistic and reasonable compliance regime

There is a need to clarify the meaning of must and for an understandable, realistic and reasonable compliance regime

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JISC 5/99 programme ~80% of project home pages were not HTML compliant

JISC 5/99 programme ~80% of project home pages were not HTML compliant


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The Context

There will be a context to use of standards:• The intended use:

Mainstream Innovative / research Key middleware component Small-scale

deliverable

• Organisational culture: National vs small museum Teaching vs Research Service vs development …

• Available Funding & Resources: Significant funding & training to use new standards Minimal funding - current skills should be used

• …

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An open standards culture is being developed, which is supportive of use of open standards, but which recognises the complexities and can avoid mistakes made in the past

An open standards culture is being developed, which is supportive of use of open standards, but which recognises the complexities and can avoid mistakes made in the past


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Quality Assurance

External factors: institutional, cultural, legal, …

The Layered Standards Model

JISCJISC

JISC / project

JISC / project

3rd Parties

3rd Parties

Owner

Annotated Standards Catalogue

Purpose Governance Maturity Risks …

Prog. n Funding Research Sector …

Context: Policies

External Self assessment Penalties Learning

Context: Compliance

JISC's layered standards model, developed by UKOLN. Note that one size doesn't always fit all


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Implementation

How might this approach be used in practice?

Programme XX Call / Contract

Committees Advisers

Programme Team

Proposals must comply with XYZ standardProposals should seek to comply with XYZProposals should describe approach to XYZ

Projects audited to ensure compliance with …Projects should develop self-assessment QA

procedures and submit findings to JISCProjects should submit proposed approach

for approval/information

Development ProgrammeDevelopment Programme

JISC Manager

ReportReport

Contract

Report must be in MS Word / … and use JISC template…

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Note recent feedback has identified the need for heading on usage in other programmes (i.e. political acceptance)

The Standards Catalogue

The information provided aims to be simple and succinct (but document will still be large when printed!)

Standard: Dublin Core About the Standard: Dublin Core is a metadata standard made up …Version: New terms are regularly added to … Maturity: Dublin Core has its origins in workshops held …Risk Assessment: Dublin Core plays a key role …. It is an important standard within the context of JISC development programmes. Further Information:

• DCMI, <http://dublincore.org/> • …

Author: Pete Johnston, UKOLN Contributor: Date Created: 04 Oct 2005 Update History: Initial version.

Example

Note that as the standards catalogue is intended for wide use the contents will need to be fairly general


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Standards Catalogue Process

There's a need for developing and enhancing the standards catalogue in order to:

• Update with new standards• Learn from feedback and experiences

Review

Policies

Context

Compliance

SupportInfrastructure

QAFramework

User Experiences

Funder'sExperiences

Standards

…Standards

E-Framework

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Sustainability

How do we • Sustain, maintain & grow the standards catalogue?• Develop a sustainable support infrastructure?

Suggestions:• More resources for support infrastructure• Extend model to related areas to gain buy-in, etc• Exploit learning gained by projects, reuse

experiences, encourage sharing, etc.:• Build on QA Focus approach (briefing docs and

case studies)• Contractual requirement for projects to produce

end-user deliverables and deliverables related to development process

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Lessons From NOF-digi TAS

What have we learnt from supporting the NOF-digi programme:

Use of Standards• Best practices not necessarily embedded if

imposed externally• Formal compliance monitoring can be expensive

(& unproductive)

Establishing Community of Practice• Limitations of top-down & centralised support• Sustainability problems of large, monolithic and

centrally owned support resources

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Support InfrastructureOpportunity to exploit deliverables from JISC-funded QA Focus project:

• 100+ briefing documents & 30+ case studies• Licensed (where possible) under Creative Commons• UKOLN are continuing to publish new documents

(documents on Folksonomies, AJAX, Podcasting, Wikis, etc. published recently)

Case Study Template• About the Project• Area covered• Approach taken• Lessons Learnt /

Things We'd Do Differently

• …

Case studies:• Opportunity to describe

experiences in specific areas• Standard template to ensure

consistency & provide focus• Allows UKOLN to promote

projects' work • Project get better Google rating

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Support Infrastructure (2)

How do we integrate the standards catalogue with implementation experiences, etc.

• Linking to related information in Wikipedia (the world can help the updating)

• Uploading information to Wikipedia – the wider community can help to update and maintain it

• Making information available with CC licences – so others can use it, update it – and hopefully give feedback on enhancements

• Use of syndication technologies (RSS & OPML)

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Note this is a Web 2.0 approach:• Uses Web 2.0 syndication technologies• Trusts users and benefits from a wide user base• Contributes to Web 2.0 services

Note this is a Web 2.0 approach:• Uses Web 2.0 syndication technologies• Trusts users and benefits from a wide user base• Contributes to Web 2.0 services


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Support Model

Different stakeholders have different interestsDevelopers

• Selection of standards & architectures

Users• Is it usable?• Will it do what I want?• Will I use it?• Can I use it in various

contexts?Funders, etc

• Addressing differing interests


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Similar Approaches Elsewhere

AHRC (Arts & Humanities Research Council) programmes:

• Requirement for bids to include technical appendix • Covers open standards, metadata, documentation,

rights, preservation, …• Bids marked by technical experts• Flawed technical proposals are informed of

deficiencies• Training and Advice provided to community to help

raise awareness of best practices and improve quality of development proposals

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Parallels With Web 2.0

This approach has many parallels with Web 2.0

Web 2.0 Culture• Openness: Encourage of sharing by developers

(problems as well as successes); use of CC; …• Always beta: There is not a single correct solution,

but a process of continual development• User-focussed: Importance of satisfying user

communities, rather than a set of rules

Web 2.0 technologies• Alerts & Syndication: Speedy alerts for fellow

developers and reuse of content for developers• Blogs & Wikis: Tools for developers to facilitate

sharing and collaborative working

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Example: Syndicating Content

Note importance of: (a) RSS and OPML (b) modular approach and (c) Creative Commons licence to maximise use & reuse of 100+ briefing documents

Note importance of: (a) RSS and OPML (b) modular approach and (c) Creative Commons licence to maximise use & reuse of 100+ briefing documents

QA Focus resources are embedded in University of Waterloo Web site. Resources are also being ported to a Wiki to support ongoing maintenance by Web Standards community.

QA Focus resources are embedded in University of Waterloo Web site. Resources are also being ported to a Wiki to support ongoing maintenance by Web Standards community.


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Conclusions

To conclude:• Open standards are important for large-scale

development work• It is therefore important to have a pragmatic

approach and not hide behind dogma• The contextual approach:

Allows scope to address complexities of technologies; deployment environments; etc.

Best deployed within a supportive open standards culture

Can be extended to other relevant areas

• We can use Creative Commons licences for standards information; support materials; etc.

• We can (and should) take a Web 2.0 approach to support materials (and not just end user services)

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A centre of expertise in digital information management Addressing The Limitations Of Open Standards...

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