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, UK Co-Authors Marieke Guy, UKOLN Alastair Dunning, AHDS Email B. Kelly@ukoln. ac. uk 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 Attribution. Non. Commercial-Share. Alike 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 Are Great … JISC's development programmes (like others): • Traditionally based on use of open standards to: ü Support interoperability ü Maximise accessibility ü Avoid vendor lock-in ü Provide architectural integrity ü Help ensure long-term preservation History in UK HE development work: • e. Lib Standards document (v 1 – 1996, v 2 – 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 it politically incorrect to mention this!? A centre of expertise in digital information 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; W 3 C membership requirements; … A centre of expertise in digital information management www. ukoln. ac. uk 6
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 compliance regime A 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 Research Service vs development Teaching vs … • 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 can avoid mistakes made in the past A centre of expertise in digital information management www. ukoln. ac. uk 8
The Layered Standards Model Owner Quality Assurance External factors: institutional, cultural, legal, … JISC 3 rd 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 of expertise in digital information management fit all A centre that one size doesn't always 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 www. ukoln. ac. uk usage A centre of expertise in digital information management acceptance) in other programmes (i. e. political
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 … 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 www. ukoln. ac. uk • … A centre of expertise in digital information management better Google rating • Project get
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 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(a) RSS and OPML (b) modular. Waterloo Note importance of: are embedded in University of approach Web(c) Creative Commons licence to maximise use & reuse of and site. Resources are also being ported to a Wiki to support ongoing maintenance by Web Standards community. 100+ briefing documents A centre of expertise in digital information management 20 www. ukoln. ac. uk
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 digital information management services) A centre of expertise in materials (and not just end userwww. ukoln. ac. uk 21
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