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UKOLN/TechDis Workshop For RSC South East: Benchmarking Web Sites Brian Kelly UKOLN University of Bath Email [email protected] URL http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/ UKOLN is supported by: A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk Timetable 2 10:00 Registration 10:15 Welcome 10:30 Benchmarking Web Sites (Brian Kelly) 11:00 Hands-on Benchmarking Exercise 12:30 Lunch 13:15 Hands-on Benchmarking Exercise (cont) 14:00 Report Back 14:20 Accessibility (Simon Ball) 15:20 Discussion NOTE Times are subject 15:40 Conclusions to change A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk 15:45 Workshop ends A Bit About Me... Brian Kelly: • UK Web Focus – a post funded by JISC and MLA to advise HE / FE and MLA communities on effective use of the Web • Based in UKOLN – a national focus of expertise in digital information management • Based at the University of Bath • Involved in Web since 1993, while working in Computing Service at University of Leeds • Links with IT Service & Library communities • The workshop has been informed by UKOLN’s WebWatch work and the WebWatch column in Ariadne A centre of expertise in digital information management 3 www.ukoln.ac.uk A Bit About Simon Simon Ball: • Works for TechDis • Advises on IT and accessibility A centre of expertise in digital information management 4 www.ukoln.ac.uk D A Bit About You... In small groups address the questions: • Who are you, where do you work and what do you do? • What do you want to get out of this workshop? A centre of expertise in digital information management 5 www.ukoln.ac.uk Your Expectations Learning Best practices Sharing Finances Your Interests & expectations Quality Testing Staffing Checking Constraints A centre of expertise in digital information management 6 www.ukoln.ac.uk About Benchmarking Benchmarking is about: • Sharing • Learning from best practices • Learning from mistakes others have made Note that in this benchmarking workshop: • We don’t intend to have league tables • No prizes for the ‘best’ We should recognise that: • Organisations have differing priorities • Organisations have different levels of resources • Organisations have different starting points • Organisations have differing organisational politics A centre of expertise in digital information management 7 www.ukoln.ac.uk Session Aims This session: • Hands-on exercises with group discussions By the end of the session you should: • Be able to benchmark your Web site in relation to other sites in your community • Have had hands-on experience in using auditing and evaluating tools • Be aware of common problems • Be aware of how a quality assurance methodology can help to avoids problems • Be in a position to decide whether to adopt this methodology in your organisation, region, sector, … A centre of expertise in digital information management 8 www.ukoln.ac.uk Today’s Exercises (1) You will: • Use a set of Web-based tools for evaluating a variety of aspects of your Web site • Work in small groups and share your findings and discuss the implications This session: • Encourages collaboration and sharing • Is not meant to be competitive! A centre of expertise in digital information management 9 www.ukoln.ac.uk E Today’s Exercises (2) In the hands-on exercises your will evaluate: • The size of your organisation’s home page • The accessibility of your home page • The validation of your home page • How popular your Web site is How many sites link to it How well-indexed it is • How your Web site looks with different browsers • Etc. Now open the exercises handout A centre of expertise in digital information management 10 www.ukoln.ac.uk Ex. 1.1 The Size of Your Home Page You can find out the size of your home page using various tools: • NetMechanic • Bobby • … http://www.netmechanic.com/ A centre of expertise in digital information management 11 www.ukoln.ac.uk Ex. 1 Does it Work? It is useful to check key pages for accessibility, validation and functionality Web page validators include: • NetMechanic • Dr Watson • DrHTML - single pages only • … http://watson.addy.com/ A centre of expertise in digital information management 12 www.ukoln.ac.uk Ex. 2 Is it Accessible? • The Bobby Web service can check the accessibility of individual Web pages • The Bobby Java application can check the accessibility of Web sites (now licensed software) • WAVE is an alternative to Bobby http://bobby.watchfire.com/ A centre of expertise in digital information management 13 www.ukoln.ac.uk Ex. 2.6 Are There Broken Links? Monitoring the number of broken links on your Web site is very important http://www.linkalarm.com/ Desktop and Webbased tools are available: • Xenu • LinkAlarm • Linkguard • Nodeworks • NetMechanic • SiteValet • … A centre of expertise in digital information management 14 www.ukoln.ac.uk Ex.3.1 3.2 3.3 How Popular Is Your Site? There are a number of services that will tell you how many pages link to your Web site • LinkPopularity • WebSiteGarage • Netscape’s What’s Related service is used through the Netscape browser • Google info:URL search http://www.linkpopularity.com/ A centre of expertise in digital information management 15 www.ukoln.ac.uk Ex. 4 What About Other Browsers? http://www.anybrowser.com/ Does your home page (and Web site) work in: • Netscape very popular in UK HE) • IE (the most widely used browser) • Significant (all?) versions and platforms of above • Lynx (text browser which may be used by visually impaired) • AnyBrowser • DejaVu A centre of expertise in digital information management 16 www.ukoln.ac.uk E Benchmarking Exercises You have: • Benchmarked your Web site in relation to others in your community • Recorded your findings And learnt about: • Some of the issues involved when using externally hosted Web tools • Other benchmarking activities • WebWatch surveys of communities Once you have completed the exercises, report on your findings A centre of expertise in digital information management 17 www.ukoln.ac.uk Home Page Size Issues There are certain issues necessary for consideration when using these tools: • What is a home page? Splash screens Spawning new windows • Frames • Graphics and graphics folders • Dynamic pages • robot.txt files See <http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue28/web-watch/> A centre of expertise in digital information management 18 www.ukoln.ac.uk Other Benchmarking Activities What other type of benchmarking activities are useful? • Monitoring Content Quality and ‘Freshness’ • New developments and technologies - scripts, other markup languages, personalisation • Stress and security • Search engine used on site and 404 pages • Server numbers • Visibility on search engines • Usability e.g. by evaluating user feedback • Performance checkers and Independent testing services A centre of expertise in digital information management 19 www.ukoln.ac.uk Implementing A Benchmark Survey To implement your own WebWatchstyle benchmark across a community you can simply examine WebWatch articles and adapt the HTML for your own use. Further details at <http://www.ariadne.ac. uk/issue29/web-watch/> Technique Used • Use the Web service on a site • Copy URL into template • Determine URL structure • Use as basis for use with other URLs http://bobby.watchfire.com/bobby/bobbyServlet?URL= http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mla.gov.uk%2F&output=Submit&gl=wcag1-aaa A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk 20 Conclusion • Different tools give different results and results can be limited. The results should be analysed carefully - like statistics • Independent testing services can be beneficial • Comparison is useful • However a league table is not enough, for this type of evaluation. To have a point there should be follow up action Any questions? A centre of expertise in digital information management 21 www.ukoln.ac.uk