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http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/conferences/mw-2007/talk-standards/ Addressing The Limitations Of Open Standards Brian Kelly UKOLN University of Bath Bath, UK Co-Authors Marieke Guy, UKOLN Alastair Dunning, AHDS Email [email protected] Resources bookmarked using ‘mw-standards-2007' tag UKOLN is supported by: A centre of expertise in digital information management This work is licensed under a AttributionNonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 licence (but note caveat) www.ukoln.ac.uk 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 A centre of expertise in digital information management 2 www.ukoln.ac.uk Introduction 3 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 1995 UKOLN • 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 A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk Committee) Open Standards Open Standards Are Great … JISC's development programmes (like others): • Traditionally based on use of open standards to: Support interoperability Maximise accessibility Avoid vendor lock-in Provide architectural integrity Help 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) A centre of expertise in digital information management 4 www.ukoln.ac.uk Open Standards 5 … 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 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 itinformation politically incorrect to mention this!? A centre of expertise in digital management www.ukoln.ac.uk Open Standards 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 … A centre of expertise inrequirements; digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk 6 Compliance 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? JISC 5/99 programme ~80% of project home pages were not HTML compliant • 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 regime Acompliance centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk 7 Contextual Issues 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 Service vs development Teaching vs Research … • Available Funding & Resources: Significant funding & training to use new standards Minimal funding - current skills should be used • … An open standards culture is being developed, which is supportive of use of open standards, but which recognises the complexities and caninformation avoidmanagement mistakes made in the past A centre of expertise in digital www.ukoln.ac.uk 8 The Layered Standards Model Owner Quality Assurance External factors: institutional, cultural, legal, … JISC 3rd Parties Context: Policies Prog. n Funding Research Sector … Annotated Standards Catalogue Purpose Governance Maturity Risks … JISC / project Context: Compliance External Self assessment Penalties Learning JISC's layered standards model, developed by UKOLN. Note that one sizeinformation doesn't always fit all A centre of expertise in digital management www.ukoln.ac.uk 9 Contextual Model Implementation How might this approach be used in practice? Development Programme Committees Advisers Programme Team Programme XX Call / Contract Proposals must comply with XYZ standard Proposals should seek to comply with XYZ Proposals should describe approach to XYZ Projects audited to ensure compliance with … Projects should develop self-assessment QA procedures and submit findings to JISC Projects should submit proposed approach for approval/information A centre of expertise in digital information management 10 Report JISC Manager Contract Report must be in MS Word / … and use JISC template … www.ukoln.ac.uk The Standards Catalogue The information provided aims to be simple and succinct (but document will still be large when printed!) Standard: Dublin Core Example 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/> Note that as the standards •… Author: Pete Johnston, UKOLN catalogue is intended for Contributor: wide use the contents will Date Created: 04 Oct 2005 need to be fairly general Update History: Initial version. 11 Note recent feedback has identified the need for heading on of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk usage Aincentre other programmes (i.e. political acceptance) Feedback 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 Context Policies Compliance Review E-Framework Standards Standards … A centre of expertise in digital information management 12 Support Infrastructure QA Framework User Experiences Funder's Experiences www.ukoln.ac.uk Sustainability 13 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 A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk Sustainability 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 A centre of expertise in digital information management 14 www.ukoln.ac.uk Support 15 Support Infrastructure Opportunity 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 Case studies: • About the Project • Opportunity to describe • Area covered experiences in specific areas • Approach taken • Standard template to ensure • Lessons Learnt / consistency & provide focus Things We'd Do • Allows UKOLN to promote Differently projects' work management www.ukoln.ac.uk • … A centre of expertise in digital information • Project get better Google rating Support 16 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) Note this is a Web 2.0 approach: • Uses Web 2.0 syndication technologies • Trusts users and benefits from a wide user base A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk • Contributes to Web 2.0 services Support Model Different stakeholders have different interests Developers • 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 A centre of expertise in digital information management 17 www.ukoln.ac.uk Support 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 A centre of expertise in digital information management 18 www.ukoln.ac.uk Web 2.0 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 A centre of expertise in digital information management 19 www.ukoln.ac.uk Example: Syndicating Content QA Focus resources areRSS embedded in University of Waterloo Note importance of: (a) and OPML (b) modular approach Web site. Resources are also beingtoported to a use Wiki&toreuse of and (c) Creative Commons licence maximise support ongoing maintenance by Web Standards community. 100+ briefing documents A centre of expertise in digital information management 20 www.ukoln.ac.uk Conclusions 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 not just end userwww.ukoln.ac.uk services) A centre of expertise in materials digital information(and management 21