Transcript Powerpoint 97/2000 format

Current Approaches to Web
Site Development
Brian Kelly
UK Web Focus
UKOLN
University of Bath
Summary
A talk about "current technologies
that the web manager should be
using and new ones they should
be thinking about, with references
to current documents."
Email: [email protected]
URL: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/
UKOLN is funded by Resource: The Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries,
the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) of the Higher Education Funding
Councils, as well as by project funding from the JISC and the European Union.
UKOLN also receives support from the University of Bath where it is based.
Contents
• The MRC Web Site
– SiteServer Analysis
– Bobby Accessibility Audit
– Brief comments on Usability
• The HE Communities' Interests:
–
–
–
–
–
Web site Promotion
Performance Indicators
Searching
Re-engineering
Tools
• Discussion
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The MRC Web Site
3
See http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/
events/meetings/mrc-webmasters-jun-2000/
Comments On Web Site
Comments:
• 468 pages (small Web site)
• 9 internal broken links (small but need
fixing)
• 0 (of 448) broken links to external
resources
• Uses IIS 3.0 (HTTP/1.0):
– Old server: should upgrade
– HTTP/1.0: inefficient
– Have you looked at MS SiteServer (good
educational licence)
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Accessibility Audit
Used Bobby application to
report on the accessibility
of the MRC Web site:
• 264 pages checked
• 231 pages with (1) P1
WAI error
See <http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/
events/meetings/mrc-webmasters-jun-2000/>
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A Comment On Usability
Aim:
• To find out
more about
MRC prior to
visit
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Comments:
• Can you get a small group to test the usability of the site?
• Do you want to commission a usability study?
• Computing Dept. at Dundee have evaluated JISC sites
• May be a usability session at workshop in Bath in Sept.
Current Interests
Topics, developments of interest to UK HE
Web management community:
•
•
•
•
•
•
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Promoting the institution through the Web
Performance indicators
Searching and navigating
Web site re-engineering
E-business and structured Web sites
Tools:
– Content Management System
– Free tools / external tools
Promotion
See <http://www.exploit-lib.
org/issue4/promotion/>
You want:
• People to find your Web site
• People to find quality resources
You need to:
• Have short domain name (and RealName?)
• Use robots.txt (etc.) to restrict access
• Guidelines on directory structures to support
management of areas
• Consider use of "submit it" submission tools
• Beware of robot traps (frames, unusual URL
strings, etc.)
Scrubtheweb reviewed in
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<http://www.exploit-lib.org/
issue6/software-used/>
Performance Indicators
Your management / funders want performance
indicators to justify further spending:
• Nos. of visitors / sessions / hits:
Web stats can be dubious, but needed
• Nos. of links to you:
Indication of perceived value
Provides potential traffic / Is used in marketing
Can monitor using linkpopularity.com, etc.
• Nos. of resources indexed in AltaVista, etc.
Help people find you
Indication of success in Web site promotion
16 June 2000
1,822 pages pointing to MRC
351 pages in AltaVista
(including "old home page")
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See http://www.exploit-lib.org/
issue5/indicators/
Searching
Which search engine to use:
• ht://Dig (most popular in UK HE Web sites)
• MS IIS 4.0 or MS SiteServer search facility
Additional functionality:
• Admin metadata (review by)
• Dublin Core metadata (for use by third parties)
You will need:
• The indexing software
• An architecture for managing the metadata (to
avoid adding metadata management headaches
to data management headaches)
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Reengineering
What every Web manager knows:
• It's not fun any one 
• Sites are difficult to manage at (HTML) file level
• Need for semantics (will global change of 0191
work?)
• Need to manage fragments (change all MRC
images with WAI P1 problems)
• New requirements are coming (e.g. Hero)
• Knowledge of (fear of) new stuff around the corner
(XML, XHTML, SVG, RDF, …)
• Need for tools to:
– Manage current problems
– Deploy new solutions when they arrive
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A New Requirement: Hero
Hero:
• HEFCE, SHEFC, etc funded portal to UK HE
• Will contain brief course information, URLs, etc for
users to search on
• Will deliver users to departmental page
Challenges for institutions:
• How to get large nos. of departmental information
to Hero and everyone else who wants similar
information
• Solutions:
– Buy more and more data input staff
– Move to a business-to-business environment
which is more scalable
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XHTML
XHTML:
• HTML as an XML application
• Current W3C Recommendation
• Provides the benefits of XML:
– Future developments such as XLink
– XSLT for transformations
• Look to deploy now (see Tidy and HTML-Kit)
• See <http://www.exploit-lib.org/
issue6/xhtml/>
<h1>XHTML</h1>
<p>This is XHTML.</p>
<img src="logo.gif" alt="Logo" height="20" width="20 /></p>
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XSLT
XSLT:
• XSL Transformations
• W3C Recommendation
• Transform XML document to other XML DTD
or other format (RTF, PDF, etc.)
XSLT
rules
XHTML
XSLT
engine
XML file
for Hero
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WML file
for WAP
XSLT
rules
XML file
for Hero
XML
XSLT
engine
RSS for
My.MRC
WML file
for WAP
XHTML
for Web
Content Management Systems
Do we agree:
• We can't do continue Web site management by
hand or by simple file-based authoring tools?
Need for:
• Content management systems for professional
Web services
Do we go for:
• Expensive, shrink-wrapped systems (e.g. Vignette
StoryServer, used by Guardian Unlimited)
• Roll your own services (e.g. Zope)
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I've No Resources!
CMS are fine but:
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• I've no money for software
• Good techies leave
How about:
• Use of externally-hosted services
• Can be used for Web statistics, authoring tools,
user feedback, …
• Move towards ASPs (Application Service Providers)
helped by SuperJANET 4
• Opportunity to supplement national Mailing list
service by National Word Processing service?
• See <http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/webfocus/events/workshops/jusw-2000/> and
<http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue23/
web-focus/>
Discussion Time
Any questions?
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