Current Approaches to Web Site Development Brian Kelly UK Web Focus UKOLN University of Bath 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. URL: 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." 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."

2 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

3 The MRC Web Site See events/meetings/mrc-webmasters-jun-2000/

4 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)

5 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

6 A Comment On Usability Aim: To find out more about MRC prior to visit 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. 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.

7 Current Interests Topics, developments of interest to UK HE Web management community: 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

8 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 See

9 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 1,822 pages pointing to MRC 351 pages in AltaVista (including "old home page") 1,822 pages pointing to MRC 351 pages in AltaVista (including "old home page") 16 June 2000 See issue5/indicators/

10 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)

11 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

12 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

13 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 XHTML This is XHTML.

14 XSLT XSLT: XSL Transformations W3C Recommendation Transform XML document to other XML DTD or other format (RTF, PDF, etc.) XHTML XML file for Hero WML file for WAP XML XML file for Hero WML file for WAP XHTML for Web XSLT rules XSLT engine XSLT rules RSS for My.MRC

15 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)

16 I've No Resources! CMS are fine but: 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 and

17 Discussion Time Any questions?