Transcript WebWatching The UK Higher Education Community

WebWatch:
Monitoring Web
Developments In The UK
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Brian Kelly
UK Web Focus
Email
[email protected]
UKOLN
University of Bath
Bath, BA2 7AY
URL
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/
UKOLN is funded by the British Library Research and Innovation Centre, the Joint
Information Systems Committee of the Higher Education Funding Councils, as well
as by project funding from the JISC’s Electronic Libraries Programme and the
European Union. UKOLN also receives support from the University of Bath where it
is based.
Contents
Presentation
• About WebWatch
• The WebWatch Robot
• WebWatch Trawls
– UK Public Libraries
– UK University Home Pages
– Individual UK Universities
• WebWatch Futures
Discussion
Report Back
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About WebWatch
WebWatch:
• One year post funded by British Library
Research and Innovation Centre (BLRIC)
• Ian Peacock ([email protected])
appointed to post in August 1997
• Aims to:
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– Develop and use robot software to analyse web
technologies using within UK communities
– Reports for institutions, funding bodies, etc on
uptake of web technologies
– Liaise closely with communities
– Other related activities
The WebWatch Robot
WebWatch robot software:
• Originally based on Harvest indexing suite
• New modules developed in-house to
overcome Harvest limitations
• Latest version written in Object-Oriented
Perl
• Consists of:
– About 1,200 lines of code for robot
– Various utilities for processing and analysing
results
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WebWatch Trawls
The following WebWatch trawls have been
carried out:
• Analysis of UK Public Library websites
• Analysis of UK Universities & Colleges
home pages
• Analysis of eLib project pages
• Analyses of individual institutions
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UK Public Library Websites
Initial Trawl:
• Carried out in 15 October 1997
• Article published in LA Record Vol 12 (99)
Main Findings:
• Public Library websites are small
• Significant numbers of misconfigured
servers (e.g. .gif files with text/html
MIME type)
• See <URL:http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/
web-focus/webwatch/articles/
la-record-dec1997/>
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University Home Pages
Trawl:
• Carried out in 24 October 1997
• Article published in Ariadne No. 12
<URL:http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/
issue12/web-focus/>
• Additional report on hyperlinks to external
resources published
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University Home Pages
Findings:
• Normal(ish) distribution of
file size
• Normal(ish) distribution
for numbers of links
on home page
• Variety of servers
used
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Nos. of links
File size (HTML only)
University Home Pages
Design Issues
• UK HEIs now have "small" number of
links (only small number of exceptions)
Server Issues
• Apache, CERN, NCSA and then
Netscape servers most popular
• Should CERN and NCSA servers be
replaced (for performance reasons)?
• Are institutions running little-used
servers (WN, WebSite, …) in a
vulnerable position?
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eLib Project Pages
Trawl:
• Carried out in November 1997
• Larger size of resource unearthed some
bugs in software
• Not all resources trawled
Main Findings:
• See <URL:http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/
web-focus/webwatch/reports/
elib-nov1997/>
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eLib Project Pages
Profiles differed for UK
HEIs entry points
Server usage
Apache
Entry Point File Size
Nos. of HTML elements
per page
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eLib Project Pages
"New" technologies (XML, Java, …) did not
appear to be used widely with the possible
exception of Dublin Core metadata
Use of <META> Element
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Use of <SCRIPT> Element
Note - By March 1998 one institution was
using Java on Institutional entry point
WebWatch Futures
Technical
• Finish object-oriented robot
• Develop relational database for storing
data
• Develop web interface to provide
(restricted) access to database
Trawl Univ home pages 
Query File size

Report Histogram

Histogram
Pie Chart
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Institutional Trawls
Trawls of institutions started recently. Will
produce reports on:
• Website size
• Profiling of website
• Technologies used
• Quality (e.g. broken links, HTML
conformance)
Manual survey will complement robot
survey
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WebWatch Futures (2)
Reports
• Standardised reports
• Overall report
Communities
• Aim to develop close links with
communities:
– University libraries
– Information Gateways
– Academic departments
– Institutional web teams
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Your Feedback
Your feedback to the WebWatch project is
welcomed
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