Transcript MS PowerPoint format

Surveys of Scottish 5/99
Project Web Sites
Brian Kelly
UK Web Focus &
QA Focus Manager
UKOLN
University of Bath
Email:
[email protected]
Contents
 Background
 Summaries of Surveys:
• HTML Compliance
• Accessibility
• Availability on a PDA
• Availability on the Internet
Archive
 Implications
 Development of a SelfAssessment Toolkit
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Background To The Surveys
QA Focus:
• Is addressing QA in several areas (e.g. access
digitisation, service deployments, etc.)
• Initial activities are based on areas of expertise
of QA Focus Team members (e.g. Web and
images)
• This presentation covers an initial set of
surveys concerned with Web access
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About The Surveys
The surveys:
• Made use of freely-available Web-based services
• The survey methodology is transparent & usable by all
• The findings are reproducible
The aims of the surveys are to:
• Identify best practices which can be adopted by others
• Provide examples of approaches which can be used
by projects either individually or in clusters
• Covered FAILTE, Xgrain, EEVL Computing
Gateway, Using Numerical Data, Lemur and
e-MapScholar project Web sites
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Survey 1: HTML Compliance (1)
A survey of compliance with HTML standards:
• Aims to provide an indication of compliance with
HTML standards across projects
• Survey looks at project entry points
• Survey uses W3C’s HTML validation service
Findings:
 One entry point is compliant with XHTML
 One entry point does not have a DTD
 Four entry points have no Character Encoding
 Three entry points have small number of errors
 Two entry points have a large number of errors
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Survey 1: HTML Compliance (2)
Compliance with HTML standards is needed to:
• Avoid browser vendor proprietary features
• Maximise accessibility
• Allow resources to be repurposed by applications
other than browsers
• Allow Web sites to claim compliance with HTML and
accessibility standards (which may be mandatory)
Discussion:
• FAILTE shows an attractive entry point which
complies with the latest HTML standards
• Other sites need to address HTML tools
and workflow issues
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Survey 1: HTML Compliance (3)
http://failte.ac.uk/
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Survey 2: Accessibility
A survey of compliance with accessibility standards:
• Aims to provide an indication of compliance with W3C
WAI guidelines across projects
• Survey looks at project entry points
• Survey uses the Bobby accessibility testing service
Findings:
One entry point is compliant with WAI AAA (FAILTE!)
Four entry points are compliant with WAI AA
One entry point is not compliant
NOTE:
• Use of automated tools will not detect all
accessibility problems.
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Survey 3: Access Using PDA
Why?
• We can expect to see increasing use of PDAs
• If Web sites can be accessed on a PDA they are
likely to be reusable by other applications
How?
• The AvantGo Web site was used and Web sites
made available on a Palm PDA
Findings:
All Web sites could be accessed
on a PDA
The entry point for some sites was
not held in a project sub-directory so
the entire Web site was transferred.
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Survey 4: Availability On Internet
Archive
A survey of the availability of project Web sites on the
Internet Archive was carried out:
• This may provide a emergency backup if a project
ceases to exist and Web site disappears
• If Web sites can be stored successfully on the
Internet Archive they may be harvested by other
mirroring/archiving services
Findings:
Five Web sites are available in Internet Archive
One Web site is not available
NOTE:
• No archives are available since Nov 2001
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Discussion
Survey Findings:
• The findings are available at <http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/
qa-focus/surveys/scottish-projects-09-2002/>
Note that:
• A “league table” is inappropriate (projects have
different objectives, levels of resources, etc.)
• The findings may need interpretation
Support Documentation
• Where findings show that advice is needed
we will advise JISC Advisory Service or
produce materials ourselves
• Initial documents available at
<http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/qa-focus/documents/>
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Discussion
We hope that:
• The survey findings will be of interest to projects
and will allow you to address problem areas and
implement examples of best practices
• You will be able to implement more comprehensive
testing across project Web sites
Note that:
• The surveys are intended initially for
discussions within projects
• If serious problems are found QA Focus will
raise concerns with the project. If problems
are not addressed we will raise the matter
with JISC (as we are funded to do).
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Development Of A SelfAssessment Toolkit
QA Focus:
• Aims to develop a self-assessment toolkit which
will allow projects to check their QA procedures in
areas including:
• Access (e.g. Web)
 Digitisation
• Metadata
 Software development
• Service deployment  …
• The Web surveys are the first step
• Your feedback is welcomed
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