Transcript What Can Mashups Offer?

http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/conferences/rsc-conference-2007/
What Can Mashups Offer?
RSC 3.0 Conference, October 2007
Brian Kelly
UK Web Focus
UKOLN
University of Bath
Bath, UK
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About Me / About This Talk
Brian Kelly:
• UK Web Focus – a JISC/MLA-funded post
• Advises on Web technologies – emerging
technologies, standards & best practices
• Based at UKOLN – a national centre of expertise
in digital information management
• Regular blog posts on UK Web Focus blog at
<http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/>
This talk:
• Introduces the concept of mashups
• Provides some examples
• Suggests why RSCs should engage in making
use of mashups
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What is A Mashup?
A mashup is:
• A Web application that combines data from more
than one source into a single integrated tool; a
typical example is the use of cartographic data
from Google Maps
• Three general flavours:
1. Consumer mashups: e.g. Google Maps apps, with
emphasis on presentation
2. Data / enterprise mashups: merging data from internal
and external sources
3. Business mashup: combination of above: combines
data integration, presentation plus addition
functionality, such as collaboration features
From Wikipedia
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How I Use Mashups (1)
Some simple mashups
which we can all create
• Location of the organisation
And note benefits over
conventional maps
• Location of other
organisation – in this case,
places I’ve spoken at
These examples require me to copy JavaScript code
and tweak parameters or edit simple XML files
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How I Use Mashups (2)
I store a copy of many
slides on Slideshare
The slides can then be
embedded and viewed on
other Web sites – no
downloading needed
There’s also an interface
in Facebook – so you
gain the social
networking benefits for
free
These examples simply need me to copy a HTML
fragment to my own Web page
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How I Use Mashups (3)
Blog context can be
easily embedded in
other applications 
Here’s the UK Web
Focus blog (with one
reader’s comment) ..
… and here’s the blog
aggregated in the JISC
Emerge community
(with another comment)
Some people feel that content replication can be confusing and
fragments discussion. I prefer to maximise access and
encourage discussions from multiple communities.
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How I Use Mashups (4)
As well as content, you can
integrate communication
tools into Web sites
Embedded chat tools such
as Meebo, Gabbly, etc. are
growing in popularity
I’ve recently started to
experiment with embedded
video chat tools, such as TokBox
– used at a recent conference to
allow a remote speaker to
participate in event
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What I’d Like To See
Northumbria University
were early users of
Google Maps
Note how:
• Key locations (e.g. for
Open Day) shown
• Personalised maps
can be provided
They also have a national
map & data for UK
Universities (with
Northumbria always
shown)
Should RSCs do likewise, for colleges in their area?
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Other Examples
Other examples of mashups (provided after a
Facebook status inviting suggestions):
• Community building: Map showing locations of
contributors to the Archives Hub service
• Country-specific Contacts: Aberdeen University
providing links for overseas students to contacts
in various countries
• Calendar Information: Details of Oxford
University’s Continuing Education courses are (a)
located on Google Maps and (b) listed on Google
Calendar
• “They Stole OUr Learning Environment - Now
We're Stealing It Back”: Various blog posts
describing OU’s work with mashups, Web 2.0, …
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Not Just Data
It’s not just about repurposed
data or embedding
applications
The term mashup has its roots
in music cf. I’m Sorry I Haven’t
A Clue’s ‘Lyrics of one tune to
tune of another”
A video example of this was created by Graham Attwell
which juxtaposed:
• A JISC cartoon SOA approach to development and
• The user’s perspective / informal learning
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Not Just 2D!
You can also create
mashups in 3D
environments, such as
Second Life
This YouTube video
provides an example
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3qwu2nIKt4
Creating Mashups
Yahoo Pipes is a popular
tool for bringing mashup
creation to the masses.
You can:
• Explore existing
Pipes, use, copy and
tweak them
• Create new Pipes
from scratch
See OUseful blog for
details of how to do this
Other mashup creation tools include PopFly and the
Google Mashup Editor
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Doing It By Hand
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<title>What Can Mashups Offer?</title>
<link>http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/
conferences/rsc-conference-2007/</link>
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conferences/rsc-conference-2007/</guid>
<description>Brian Kelly will give a talk on "What
Can Mashups Offer?" at the "RSC 3.0" annual
conference at Ramanda Hotel Birmingham on 16
October 2007.</description>
<geo:lat>52.545043</geo:lat>
<geo:long>-1.846733</geo:long>
<dc:date>2007-10-16</dc:date>
</item>
I create by RSS feeds
manually:
• RSS feed of past &
future events
• <META> tag for
individual events
Various applications can
render this data
<meta name="geo.placename" content="Ramanda Hotel, Birmingham" />
<meta name="geo.position" content="52.545043,-1.846733" />
<meta name="ICBM" content="52.545043,-1.846733" />
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Supporting A Community
IWMW 2007 featured an
innovation competition
which encouraged
lightweight development
How about:
• A mashup competition for colleges in your
region?
• Use of mashups to support RSC events,
such as this one?
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Submissions
• Where delegates are
from & what they’re
blogging about
• Edge Hill students
provide location of
their home town
• Newport College
have ported their
VLE to Facebook
But Why?
We’ve seen example of various mashups
Can you give some suggestions why mashups can be
important?
How about:
• They allow others to add value to your data - see
Paul Walk’s post on “The coolest thing to do with
your data will be thought of by someone else”
• You can build richer services that you could do one
your own, by making use of existing applications
• New insights can be provided
• It relates to the JISC IE (Information Environment)
vision of seamless access to education & research
services
• ...
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The Challenges
What challenges to deployment of mashups
can you envisage?
How about
• How do we learn how to deploy mashups?
• What about the legal obstacles?
• Are mashup services sustainable?
• What about institutional barriers?
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Addressing The Challenges (1)
Approaches:
• Learning: Video, podcasts, tutorials, etc. on tools
are available.
• Legal barriers: A need for risk assessment and
flexibility (and try to provide Creative Commons
licences for your resources)
• Sustainability: What happens if Google
becomes bankrupt (or more realistically, changes
its terms & conditions). Again risk assessment
and flexibility.
• Institutional inertia: Beware the ‘ownership
fundamentalist’ who feels the need to own all
data and software (more of a problem for HE?)
Try things - “seek forgiveness, not permission”
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Addressing The Challenges (2)
But what about:
• Firewalls which
may block
embedded
objects?
• The
accessibility of
embedded
objects esp.
with embedding
using Flash or
JavaScript?
Are these insurmountable barriers, or are there ways to
overcome such limitations?
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Conclusions
To conclude:
• Mashups are a key part of Web 2.0
• Exploit the notion of ‘the Web as a
platform’ – the data and the application
can be anywhere
• The technical infrastructure is now in
place
• RSS is important – it’s not just news
syndication
• An opportunity for experimentations,
leading to service deployment
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Questions
Questions are welcome
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