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Web Futures: Implications
For Higher Education
Brian Kelly
UK Web
UKOLN
University of Bath
Bath, UK
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Contents
•
•
•
•
Introduction
Background – The History of the Web
Where Are We Now?
New Developments:
 W3C developments
 Web 2.0
• Deployment Challenges
• Conclusions
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About Me
3
Brian Kelly:
• UK Web Focus – post funded by JISC and
MLA to advise UK HE / FE and cultural
heritage sectors on best Web practices
• Based at UKOLN, University of Bath
• Helped set up Web service in Leeds
University in Jan 1993 - first in UK(?) and
in first 50 registered at CERN)
• Web evangelist from 1993 (against Gopher
orthodoxy!)
• Attended several WWW conferences since
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first
inin1994
History Of The Web In HE
1993 – Early adopters
1994 – Web wins (Gopher starts to be phased out)
1994? – Web-support Mailbase list (David Riddle) – start
of (enthusiastic) UK HE Web community
199? – University Webmasters start to be appointed.
Website-info-mgt Mailbase list set up to support
University Webmasters (political pawns, not cool
Web developers)
199?
Best practice docs published by AGOCG
1997 – First Institutional Web Management Workshop
(IWMW) held at KCL (held annual ever since)
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Reflections On IWMWs
June
Sept
"
"
June
"
"
"
July
June
1997
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
KCL
Newcastle
Goldsmiths
Bath
Belfast
Strathclyde
Kent
Birmingham
Manchester
Bath
2 days (lunchtime-lunchtime)
3 days (2 days content)
"
"
3 days (2.5 days content)
"
"
3 days (2 days content)
3 days (2 days content)
3 days (2 days content)
Meeting people, networking, “I am not alone”
Finding answers from gurus and best practices
Performance, authoring tools, HTML, databases
CMS  Web strategy  Exploiting new stuff
5
There are no easy answers 
Today A centre of expertise in digital information management
We can all contribute
www.ukoln.ac.uk
We're Doing Well 
6
Positive aspects of the UK HE Web community:
• Willingness to share experiences (e.g. on websupport and website-info-mgt lists)
• A well-established annual event
• Avoidance of the ghetto mentality: senior
managers, information professionals, designers,
software developers, trainers, … meet, talk and
socialise together
Challenges we face:
• Open sources vs licensed software debate
• Role of standards (e.g. SMIL vs Flash)
• Managing with limited resources
• Managing service vs supporting user needs - cf
Andrew Aird's talk in 2002 on "Pursuing A Radical
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Web
Strategy"
What About Web Standards?
Early Days
• HTML+CSS+WAI WCAG = 
(Netscape's support for CSS was a problem)
Later
• XML a winner
• New W3C formats (PNG, SMIL, SVG, …)
• Limited take-up – and other solutions have benefits
(e.g. Flash)
More Recently
• Complexity and Confusion: Semantic Web, Web
Services, deployment difficulties (e.g. XHTML 2.0),
patent issues, process issues, …
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Summary – UK HE Web In 2004/5
State of play in 2004/5:
• Web is mission critical
• We have Web teams and resources (but
we'd like more)
• We have a Web/Information Strategy
• Focus tends to be on publishing
• Key applications areas:
 Institutional Web site
 VLEs
 Digital repositories
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 Intranets
 Portals
 …
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Web For 2006+
9
Significant changes seem to be happening:
• Blogs and Wikis
• RSS and Podcasting
• Mobile devices
• Pervasive networks (WIFi, broadband at
home, 3G, …)
• Integration of services ("mashups")
• Microformats
• Google developments
• SOA
• ofWeb
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Web 2.0
What Is Web 2.0?
• A marketing term, rather than a formal technical
standards ("“an attitude not a technology”)
Characteristics Of Web 2.0
• Network as platform
• Architecture of participation
• Social networking
• Social tagging
• Remix and mash-ups
• Blogs & Wikis
• Syndication
• Users
• Always beta
Web2MemeMap, Tim O’Reilly,
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•…
10 2005
Web 2.0 Exemplars
Let's
look at some examples – presented to SWLAC
staff
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AJAX, XML, Web
Services, …
Does your campus map use
Google Maps, or is it trapped
in a GIF file?
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Google Earth tour
of IWMW events
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Note:
• Greasemonkey
environment
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Note:
• BBC Backstage
competition (free
iPod??)
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Mobile Devices
Potential of mobile
devices in
learning, research,
etc.
Lectures on iPods; studentcreated Podcasts; ..
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Note that Talis (UK library vendor)
are publishing Blogs and
Podcasts about "Library 2.0"
And UKOLN/CDNTL have also
been experimenting
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PDF
http://www.everyobject.net/static.php?page=interactive
Are your University
Podcasts available
through iTunes?
Aren't you missing
out on a major
distribution channel?
(Note Student's
Union radio shows
are leading
the way)
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Creative Commons,
Science Commons,
Open
UK participants include:
Access, Open Source, … are
helping to drive Web 2.0.
National Archives
What's the UK HE's take on
Natural History Museum
this?
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http://creativecommons.org/
See "Let's Free IT Support Materials!" (EUNIS 2005 paper)
as an example
of what UK HE could be doing
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http://www.flickr.com/
+
“folksonomies”
Issues
• "Claim your tag" (e.g. "iwmw2005") and convention (e.g.
"kcl-publicity", "imperialgraduation-2006") for your
photos, Blogs, etc.?
• NB londonterroristattack
tags on 7/7
• Should you proactively make
you photos,
etc. available?
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Semantic Web or semantic web
Semantic Web:
• W3C approach to provide a Web with meaning
• Hard
Lower case semantic web / microformats
• Been waiting too long for the SW, let's make use
of today's technologies
• Microformats – provide semantic in (X)HTML
using <span>, <div> and <a .. rel="foo">
Examples
Define structured date about people, dates, etc. thus:
<span class="vcard">Brian</span> …
XSLT transformations to VCard, etc
Tom
Heath's
harvester
ANB
centre
of expertise
in digital acronym
information management
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23
Blogs (1)
Blogs
• User created content (diary-style interface)
• Student use:
 Shared learning
 Gaining experience
 Social use
 …
• Research use:
 Dissemination
 Resource discovery
 Engagement
 …
• Support use:
 What's On, for sale, …
 Creating RSS
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 Email alerts
 …
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Blogs (2)
Challenges:
• Can we trust our users?
• Will we be sued, get embarrassed, …?
• In-house or externally-hosted?
• Should we do it?
• Can we afford not to?
Experiences
• University of Warwick Blog service - see
Podcast interview
• Interests from talk at IWMW 2005
and UCISA/UKOLN event, Nov 2004
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Wikis (1)
Wikis:
• Collaborative Web-based authoring
environment
• Wikipedia is an example of a successful
Wiki
• See QA Focus "An Introduction To Wikis"
briefing document
Issues:
• Can we trust the contributors?
• Wiki spam, grafitti, IPR, …?
• Best practices, interoperability, …www.ukoln.ac.uk
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Wikis (2)
Discussion:
• Can you afford not to contribute to
Wikipedia?
• Can provide Wikis for use by small groups
• Can be used for annotation
• Is being increasingly used
Implementation:
• Which is the best?
• Wiki migration
UKOLN intends to host a Wiki (using MediaWiki) to
develop community resources on CMSs, VLEs,
…
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Instant Messaging (1)
Instant Messaging:
• Trivial chat which should be banned?
• Learning is a collaborative activity, so
instant messaging, chat rooms, etc. are
important
Issues:
• Which environment: MSN, Yahoo, Jabber,
IRC, …
• ID management
• Spamming, noise, etc
• What’s this got to do with the Web?
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Instant Messaging (2)
Meebo:
• A Web-based
IM client
• An AJAX
application
Issues:
• How do you
ban it?
• Interoperability
http://www.meebo.com/
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GMail
Who needs a University email account when you can
get 1 Gb from a GMail account (with AJAX interface) ?
My Plans
• Get GMail ID
• Use it as secondary
source for mailing lists
• Don't divulge ID (no
spam)
• Wait and see what
extras Google provide
(RSS feed would be
nice – now available)
• Gain feel for privacy
issues
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Skype / VoIP
VoIP: future of telephony
Popular applications such as
Skype:
• Integrated voice, IM,
Web, (and now video)
• Can be high quality
• Free (or cheap to
landlines & mobiles)
• Conference calls
• …
VoIP is coming, so now’s the time to gain experiences.
What are the implications of ‘free’ always-on telephony.
You
could
all inbe
broadcasting
this talk now! www.ukoln.ac.uk
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RSS
See RSS
briefing paper
E-mail has its role but:
• Why send messages which time-out when many users will
read them too late?
• Why not use delivery channels which are spam-free?
• Why not use delivery channels which are more suited to
receiving information (as opposed to discussions)?
• Why not allow users to select their preferred channels?
RSS:
• Syndication of content
• A light-weight standard
used in the JISC IE
• View on Web, using one of
many dedicated RSS viewers,
Opera or Pluck IE plugin
Shouldn't RSS viewers be standard on desktops?
Google for "rss is opt-in
Shouldn't we be creating RSS feed for news
authenticated email"
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alerts
–
and
not
just
adding
to
email
overload?
32
Deployment Challenges
Such questions:
• How do we go about deploying Web 2.0?
• More importantly, should we (isn't it just hype?)
Challenges:
• The Web policy is owned by the marketing people;
they see the Web as a publishing vehicle not as a
communications tool
• We can't use Creative Commons, open access, etc.
• We shouldn't make use of commercial services
• These services are:
• Technically / philosophically flawed
• Don't reflect our views on open source / standards
• Breaking out of our existing culture, software, …
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Answers
What are the answers to these questions?
How do we face the challenge of 'disruptive
technologies'?
Is this a real issue – don't we simply absorb such
technologies through evolution?
Answers to questions will be sought at the UKOLN/UCISA/CETIS
workshop on "Initiatives & Innovation: Managing Disruptive
Technologies" at University of Warwick, 24 Feb 2006.
<http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/seminars/kcl-2006-01/>
Or submit a proposal for a talk or workshop at the 10th Institutional
Web Management Workshop at University of Bath, 14-16 June 2006.
(Call for papers currently open) <http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/
events/workshops/webmaster-2006/>
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Some Answers For Free 
Thoughts about deployment strategies:
• The need to be an adaptable/agile audience (cf.
the Monarchy and the London Whale / Di's
funeral)
• It's not new – cf eLib Hybrid Libraries, the RDN's
Behind the Headlines as 'mashups'
• Benefits of modular approaches to reflect the
diversity of the HE environment (cf E-Frameworks
and SOA approach to development)
• If you don't:
 Your rivals will
 Your departments will use the stuff anyway
 Who needs central services when we can get better
services
forinformation
free from
Google, Yahoo, … ! www.ukoln.ac.uk
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management
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Discussion
Questions, comments, etc. welcome
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