Transcript http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/e-government-2006-05/ A Contextual Framework For Standards Brian Kelly UKOLN University of Bath Bath, UK Email [email protected] Co-Authors Alastair Dunning, AHDS Lawrie Phipps, JISC Sebastian Rahtz, OSS Watch Paul Hollins, CETIS The authors are all.

http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/e-government-2006-05/
A Contextual Framework
For Standards
Brian Kelly
UKOLN
University of Bath
Bath, UK
Email
[email protected]
Co-Authors
Alastair Dunning, AHDS
Lawrie Phipps, JISC
Sebastian Rahtz, OSS Watch
Paul Hollins, CETIS
The authors are all active in JISC-funded work and in
providing advice on best practices at a national level
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
• About the speaker
• Open standards are great … but don't
always work
• Addressing the tensions – a contextual
approach
• Using the model
• Extending the model
• Risk assessment approach
• Conclusions
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Background
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About The Speaker
Brian Kelly:
• UK Web Focus – an advisory post to advise UK's
HE/FE and cultural heritage sectors on Web
standards & best practices
• Based at UKOLN, a national; centre of expertise
for digital information management
• Located at the University of Bath, UK
• Funded by JISC and MLA
Key work areas:
• Use of standards in JISC's development
programmes
• Advice on accessibility
• …
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Open Standards
Open Standards Are Great  …
JISC's development programmes:
• 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 Standards document (2001)
which influenced:
• NOF-digi Technical Standards
• ..
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Open Standards
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… 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!?
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Open Standards
What is An Open Standard?
Which of the following are open standards?
• XHTML 1
 PDF
 Flash
• Java
 MS Word
 RSS (1.0/2.0)
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
…
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digital information management
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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
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RSS Example
Is RSS An Open Standard?
Is RSS an open standard ("are RSSs open standards")?
RSS 1.0 (RDF Site Summary)
• XML application using RDF model
• Developed by Aaron Schwarz
RSS 2.0 (Really Simple Syndication)
• XML application using simpler model
• Developed by Davey Winer
Note that RSS is a widely used and popular application;
with usage growing through its key role in Podcasts
Issues:
• Are these open standards?
• Are they reliable and robust enough to build
mission-critical services on?
• Is there a clear roadmap for the future? www.ukoln.ac.uk
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RSS Example
RSS – Governance Issues
Governance Issues:
• RSS 1.0 specification maintained by Aaron Schwartz:
"Aaron Swartz is a teenage writer, hacker, and
activist. He was a finalist for the ArsDigita Prize for
excellence in building non-commercial web sites at
the age of 13. At 14 he co-authored the RSS 1.0
specification, now used by thousands of sites to
notify their readers of updates."
• RSS 2.0 specification developed by Dave Winer:
"Winer is known as one of the more polarizing
figures in the blogging community. … However ..
there are many people and organizations who seem
unable to maintain a good working relationship with
Dave."
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RSS Example
RSS 1.0 – Roadmap Issues
RSS 1.1:
• In Jan 2005 RSS 1.1 draft released:
"[we] expressed our mutual frustrations with 1.0 …,
we decided that rather than lauch (sic) ... another …
diatribe against the quality of the RSS 1.0 spec, … [we
would] simply write a new specification ourselves. "
But it is no longer being developed:
• Draft technically good (addressed ambiguities &
interoperability flaws) but political reaction apathetic
• RSS 2.0 has (a) better acronym and (b) momentum
(through Podcasting)
• And RSS 2.0 sounds newer
• RSS 3.0 (joke?) proposal has caused confusion
and arguments on Slashdot and elsewhere
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RSS Example
RSS 2.0 – Roadmap Issues
RSS 2.0:
• Spec published by Harvard Law School with a
Creative Commons licence
• RSS-Board YahooGroups used for governance body
• Many arguments (most recently on proposal to
expand board in April 2006):
"Winer has now decided that the board doesn't exist and never
had authority over the RSS specification, even though it has
published six revisions from July 2003 to the present.
I don't agree, but now that the board's fully public, we're in a
position to make his wish a reality."
Note Wikipedia has useful links to the history and
of RSS
Apolitics
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RSS Example
RSS – Summary
What can be learnt:
• We thought RSS was a great lightweight
syndication technology
• It was – but competing alternatives were
developed
• No clear winner (RSS 1.0's extensibility & W3C's
support versus RSS 2.0's simplicity and take-up
in Podcasting, iTunes, etc)
Conclusions
• Life can be complex, even with simple standards
• Technical merit is never enough – market acceptance can
change things
• RSS can still be useful, and interoperability can be provided by
RSS libraries supporting multiple formats
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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:
 HE vs FE
 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
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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
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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
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Report
JISC
Manager
Contract
Report must
be in MS
Word / … and
use JISC
template
…
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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.
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Note recent feedback has identified the need for heading on
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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
…
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Support
Infrastructure
QA
Framework
User
Experiences
Funder's
Experiences
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Sustainability
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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
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Extending The Model
Context: Policies
Sector Funding Culture Resources …
Annotated Catalogues
Standards Software Accessibility …
Context: Compliance
External Self assessment Learning
…
Joint UKOLN /
TechDis /
OSS Watch work
has extended the
layered model to
other related
areas*
This model aims to provide a consistent & understandable model:
• For use by the funders and for use by projects
• Applicable to the diversity to be found in the sector
• Applicable to the technical complexity and diversity
• Potentially applicable outside UK sector
*A centre
Application
accessibility
described at W4A
2006
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Support
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Support Infrastructure (1)
Opportunity to exploit deliverables from JISC-funded QA
Focus project:
• 90+ 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
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get better Google
rating 
Support
21
Support Infrastructure (2)
How others can contribute (projects & third parties)
Case Studies
• On way home use template to summarise one
aspect of your development work and send to me
Briefing Documents
• Write a (brief!) briefing paper on area not currently
covered and send to me
Why?
• Others (e.g. me) can cite your work
• Use of a CC licence enables you, your work, your organisation, … to
become known in other sectors – you can benefit from this
• You will be seen to be good Web citizens
• You may get the 'feel good' factor – it's not just open source software
developers who can share their work
• You can benefit from our work .. so it would be good if we can benefit
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fromAyours
Support
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Support Infrastructure (3)
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
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• Contributes to Web 2.0 services
Syndicating Content
Note importance of: (a) RSS and OPML (b) modular approach
and (c) Creative Commons licence to maximise use & reuse of
90+ briefing
documents
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Future Work
Risk Assessment Model
SS=f(SB, S, U, En, ..)
Selection of appropriate standard (SS) is function of:
Standards Body (SB): Maturity, stability, status,
openness, responsivity, …
Standard (S): Functionality, complexity / ease-of-use, …
Users (U): Appropriateness for, benefits to adoption by …
Environment (En): Institutional, community, sectoral, …
Other factors:
• Market acceptance: do vendors support it (beyond
proof-of-concept open source examples)
• Risks (am I betting the company of the standard)
• Exit options (can I easily change my mind)
• Advocacy (is the world campaigning for it) and
threats (is the world criticising for it)
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Future Work
Using Risk Assessment Model
Using model, what conclusions would you arrive at for:
• GIF vs PNG? Former has patented algorithm;
latter is open and better – but does inertia rule
(and limitations in browser support for PNG?
• PDF vs HTML/CSS? Latter is open and better for
reuse but publishing processes prefer control
provided by latter (cf this workshop)
• PowerPoint vs HTML/CSS (e.g. S5) or SMIL?
Former is ubiquitous; easier for authors and gives
better handouts
• Semantic Web vs semantic web vs status quo?
Promises much, but complex vs simpler approach
using existing technologies vs people may be
happy with status quo and organisation reluctant
to take risks
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Conclusions
Conclusions
To conclude:
• Open standards is important and use should be
encouraged, esp, in public sectors
• Because of importance, there is a need for 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 for open access
to standards information; support materials; etc.
which can help sustainability
• A risk assessment approach can help avoid
mistakes in adopting risky open standards
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Questions
Any questions?
Note resources cited in the talk & accompanying
paper are bookmarked in del.icio.us using tag
''e-government-2006-kelly"
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