Transcript http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/conferences/ili-2005/talk-2/ Facing The Challenges Of A Standards-Based Approach To Web Development Brian Kelly UKOLN University of Bath Bath Email [email protected] About This Talk This talk will not tell you that open standards.

http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/conferences/ili-2005/talk-2/
Facing The Challenges Of A
Standards-Based Approach To
Web Development
Brian Kelly
UKOLN
University of Bath
Bath
Email
[email protected]
About This Talk
This talk will not tell you
that open standards are
great and you should just
use them, but address the
difficulties we face in
making use of standards
UKOLN is supported by:
A centre of expertise in digital information management
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Contents
This talk will cover:
• Why we need open standards
• The problems with open standards
• Ideology or pragmatism?
• A layered approach:
 A contextual approach for standards and
related processes – for funding bodies
 A contextual approach for development – for
funding bodies
• Extending this approach
• Conclusions
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Why Standards?
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Background
Many digital library programmes require use of open
standards
But it appears that there is little policing of compliance
with open standards. Some argue for more rigourous
policing
But issues are not always clear-cut:
• Uncertainty of the meaning of open standards
• Immaturity of standards
• Lack of support from tools
• Flexibility of marketplace solutions
• Costs
This talk seeks to address these challenges and
provide
an achievable approach
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Why Standards?
Examples
JISC & UK HE Digital Library Programmes
• Standards document produced for eLib
programme (1994) and updated to support recent
digital library programmes
The NOF-digitise Programme
• Standards document written to support the NOFdigitise programme for providing access to UK
cultural heritage resources
UK e-Government
• Standards framework developed to support eGovernment work within central and local
government
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Why Standards?
Why Use Standards?
In many digital library programmes there has been a
philosophy based on use of open standards to:
• Avoid application lock-in and platform dependencies
• Minimise migration costs
• Provide long-term access to scholarly resources
But in eLib programme (~1994-2000):
• Little policing of compliance with open standards
• Adoption of "let a thousand flowers bloom"
This approach:
• Probably sensible approach in mid-1990s (Gopher?)
• Not desirable now:
 Web is the killer application; XML is killer format
 Need to maximise access; support M2M apps; ...
 Need to protect investment from public funding
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Why Standards?
What Are Open Standards?
But what are Standards and Open Standards?
Are Flash & PDF formats and Java language open?
Can we agree on the following characteristics:
• Standard ratified by recognised neutral standards
body.
• An open standards-making process.
• Documentation is freely available on the Web.
• Use of the standard is uninhibited by licensing or
patenting issues.
Note that not all open standards bodies will comply with all of these
features. The standards-making process within the W3C, for example, is
initially restricted to organisations which are members of the W3C and a
small number
ofexpertise
invitedin experts.
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Problems With Standards
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Surveying Our Communities
Various surveys of Web sites have been carried out in
order to monitor compliance with Web standards:
Survey Of W3C Member Organisations
• Majority of W3C member home pages do not pass
the W3C's compliance test (Feb 2003)
• See <http://news.com.com/2100-1032-985941.html>
Survey Of Digital Library Programme Web Sites
• A survey of 50+ home pages for JISC's 5/99
programme was carried out in 2003
• Poor compliance found
Other Surveys
• Other surveys of UK museums, libraries, FE
colleges give similar findings
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Problems With Standards
Difficulties With Open Standards
Why do bodies which seek to use open
standards experience such difficulties?
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Lack of awareness of importance of standards
Difficulties in implementing standards
Difficulties in checking compliance
Immaturity of the standards
Limitations of the standards
Lack of support from tools
…
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Problems With Standards
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Can We Trust The Standards Guys?
RSS
• A powerful light-weight syndication standard
• Rich Site Summary, RDF Site Summary or Real
Simple Syndication?
• RSS 1.0 spec maintained by self-confessed
‘teenager writer, hacker and activist”!
• RSS 2.0 developed by interesting personality and
now hosted at Harvard Law School
• Where’s the neutral trusted standards agency?
Web Services / Semantic Web / …
• “Web Services Considered Harmful?”
• Complexity of Semantic Web
• ofAre
new
standards
complex & over-engineered?
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Solutions
What Do We Do?
What approaches should we be taking?
Surrender To The Proprietary World
• Should we allow public sector resources to be
developed in proprietary formats?
Stronger Promotion/Enforcement Of
Standards?
• Groups such as W3C's QA activity and the Web
Standards projects, … feel we should be
promoting standards-compliance work more
forcefully
• But will this single-minded approach work; it
appears to ignore complexities of the real world
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Solutions
An Open Standards Culture
And A Layered Approach
There is a third way!
The development of an open standards culture:
• Promotes the benefits of open standards
• Promotes exemplars showing best practices in
use of open standards
whilst:
• Recognising difficulties of compliance
• Recognising challenges of resourcing, technical
expertise, …
A layered model based on these principles has been
developed to support JISC’s digital library programmes
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Solutions
A Layered Approach (1)
A layered approach has been developed
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Solutions
A Layered Approach (2)
Context:
• Contextual layer allows for variability: (Middleware
must comply with xyz; reports can use MS Word; …)
Policies:
• Catalogue of standards, with risk assessments
• Other areas covered e.g. software; accessibility; …
Compliance:
• Compliance regime, such as:
• External checking / penalty clauses
• Self-assessment
 Reporting of exceptions
Quality Assurance:
• QA to ensure solutions are implemented correctly:
documented policies/systematic checkingwww.ukoln.ac.uk
procedures
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Solutions
Project’s Perspective
The three-layered approach provides a model
for use by the funding body, which helps the
development of the standards catalogue
The end user (the project) may not be aware of
this model
What will the project see?
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Solutions
The Project’s Perspective
Selection
Recommendations
Resources
Environment
Ratification
Formal
Discussions
Notification
Quality Assurance
Policies
Compliance Procedures
Reporting
Learning
Case studies
Refining process
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Benefits to 3rd parties
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Selection
Selection Process (1)
As part of the selection process for standards
there are several factors:
• Ownership and openness of standard (open,
neutral body; proprietary but community process;
community but spec publish; proprietary and
reverse engineered; proprietary and closed))
• Availability of viewers (multiple platforms;
available for free; available as open source)
• Availability of authoring tools (multiple
platforms; available for free; available as open
source)
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Selection
Java:
A Spectrum For Standards
If we have defined open standards do we treat
everything else (proprietary formats) equally bad? (And
how should we regard PowerPoint users!)
A Spectrum For Ownership:
• Is there a community process for standard
development?
• Has the standard has been published openly
• Has the standard been reverse-engineered
Owned by Sun (open standardisation attempts aborted by Sun).
However Community Process for development to language.
PDF: Owned by Adobe. However specification has been published.
Word: Owned by Microsoft. Specification has been reverse engineered.
Note use of XML in next version – so is it an open standard?
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Selection
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Selection Process (2)
• Architectural Integrity (developed as part of
broader framework – cf W3C specs)
• Fitness For Purpose (is the standard designed
for the purpose envisaged)
• Expertise (does the organisation have the
necessary expertise available in-house)
• Maturity of Standard (is the standard mature and
well-proven)
• Local Culture (does the organisation seek to
make use of emerging standards or prefer to use
proven technologies)
• User Needs (does the standard satisfy the
requirements of the user)
• Preservation Needs (is the standard appropriate
for
long-term
preservation)
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Selection
Selection Process (3)
To assist the selection
process we have
developed an online
and paper-based
toolkit
Note:
• The toolkit is
intended to prompt
discussion and not
to provide
answers
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Ratification
Ratification
Once a project has been its selection of the
standards to be used:
• The recommendation may need to be
approved (funders, advisory boards, …)
• The funders may be informed of the
recommendation
• The decision may be made by the project
Note that this process can be applied in other
areas (e.g. selection of software)
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Solutions
QA – Policies & Procedures
How do you know what you should do if you don't
have documented polices?
Policy example
Policy: Web Standards
Standard: XHTML 1.0 and CSS 2.0
Architecture: Use of SSIs and text editor
Exceptions: Automatically-derived files
Ownership: The project manager is responsible for
this policy
Checking: Use ,validate after update
Audit Trail: Use ,rvalidate monthly and
document findings
21
You may find it useful to develop similar policies
yourself – for example, a policy of the accessibility of
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your Web site
Solutions
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Learning And Sharing
Towards the end of a project, it can be helpful to have
feedback on the process and the details:
• Was the standards catalogue useful?
• Did the process work?
• What changes are needed?
As well as projects giving feedback, the decisions made
by projects and their experiences can usefully by
shared across the community:
• How did project X make use of RSS?
• What standards are project having problems with?
• …
Such answers may be of use to other communities e.g.
digital
library programmes in other countries www.ukoln.ac.uk
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Further Developments
Embedding Within Programmes
There is a need to embed this approach fully within
digital library development programmes:
• Programme Infrastructure
Not only covering standards, but also other aspects such
as use of open source software, accessibility, …)
• Programme Calls
Design of programme calls, evaluation process, …
• Project Development Work
Selection processes; QA processes; …
• Project and Programme Termination
Feedback mechanisms; maintenance of processes; …
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Further Developments
Bidding Process
Projects bidding for funding should demonstrate their
acceptance of the open standards culture by
describing :
• The standards they expect to use in their work
• The technical architecture which will be used
• The technical expertise they have to support this
• The QA procedures they will use in order to
assess their compliance
• Their justification for use of proprietary solutions
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Further Developments
Reporting Procedures
Funded projects should demonstrate their use
of open standards by providing the following
information in their periodic reports:
• The standards they have implemented
• Use of proprietary formats
• The QA procedures they have
implemented
• Audit trails showing compliance with
standards
• Explanations of changes to original
proposals
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Further Developments
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Applicability Elsewhere: Accessibility
Layered approach can also be applied to guidelines
WAI WCAG (Web Accessibility Content Guidelines)
• Are WCAG guidelines (which inform us on best
practices) or standards (we must implement?)
• Not always appropriate to e-learning (may wish to
make the answer difficult to find?), culture, art, …
• Notion of universal design runs counter to userfocused / inclusive design
• Poor WCAG compliance (in cultural heritage &
education sector, disability bodies, etc.) can
reflect WCAG limitations!
Therefore:
• Use a contextual approach to accessibility and
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usability, … See W4A/WWW 2005 paper
Further Developments
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Applicability Elsewhere: Software
Use of open source software very relevant to digital
library programmes
But:
• Not all open source software is good
• May have reasons for using proprietary software
So need for:
• Process for selection of software
• Mechanisms for choosing which OSS licence to
use (if chosen)
• Approaches to software development
• …
Work with OSS Watch in a consistent approach – see
"Top
Forin digital
Selecting
Source Software"
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The Bigger Picture
The vision is for:
Software
• Modularity in approaches
Accessibility
Context
to standards, accessibility,
software, digitisation, ..
Standards
Context
Policies
• Feedback mechanisms
Context
Policies
Compliance
to help refine model and
Compliance
Policies
advice
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Use
Evaluation
Feedback
Enhance
• Support infrastructure for Compliance
funders, projects & 3rd
parties on model and
best practices through
Support
sharing via briefing
To Funders Projects 3rd Parties
documents, case studies,
Best practices
On Processes
events, maximising
benefits through Creative By Docs Events CC licences
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Commons
licences
Conclusions
To conclude:
• Open standards are important in many
digital library development programmes
• However use of open standards is not
necessarily easy and may be costly
• Rather than abandoning open standards
there is a need to adopt an open standards
culture
• A layered approach can provide a
mechanism for implementation
• This approach can be extended to other
areas
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Questions
Any questions?
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