1. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Web Futures: Implications For Higher Education Brian Kelly UK Web UKOLN University of Bath Bath, UK UKOLN is supported by: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/seminars/kcl-2006-01/ Acceptable Use Policy Recording/broadcasting of this talk, taking photographs, discussing the content using email, instant messaging, Blogs, SMS, etc. is permitted providing distractions to others is minimised. Also feel free to access the presentation, follow links, etc. Acceptable Use Policy Recording/broadcasting of this talk, taking photographs, discussing the content using email, instant messaging, Blogs, SMS, etc. is permitted providing distractions to others is minimised. Also feel free to access the presentation, follow links, etc. This work is licensed under a Attribution- NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 licence (but note caveat) * * Subject to confirmation at end of talk

2. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 2 Contents Introduction Background – The History of the Web Where Are We Now? New Developments:  W3C developments  Web 2.0 Deployment Challenges Conclusions

3. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 3 About Me Brian Kelly: UK Web Focus – post funded by JISC and MLA to advise UK HE / FE and cultural heritage sectors on best Web practices Based at UKOLN, University of Bath Helped set up Web service in Leeds University in Jan 1993 - first in UK(?) and in first 50 registered at CERN) Web evangelist from 1993 (against Gopher orthodoxy!) Attended several WWW conferences since first in 1994

4. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 4 History Of The Web In HE 1993 –Early adopters 1994 –Web wins (Gopher starts to be phased out) 1994? –Web-support Mailbase list (David Riddle) – start of (enthusiastic) UK HE Web community 199? –University Webmasters start to be appointed. Website-info-mgt Mailbase list set up to support University Webmasters (political pawns, not cool Web developers) 199?Best practice docs published by AGOCG 1997 –First Institutional Web Management Workshop (IWMW) held at KCL (held annual ever since)

5. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 5 Reflections On IWMWs 1997 KCL2 days (lunchtime-lunchtime) 1998 Newcastle 3 days (2 days content) 1999 Goldsmiths" 2000 Bath" 2001 Belfast3 days (2.5 days content) 2002 Strathclyde" 2003 Kent" 2004 Birmingham3 days (2 days content) 2005 Manchester3 days (2 days content) 2006 Bath3 days (2 days content) June Sept " June " July June There are no easy answers  We can all contribute Finding answers from gurus and best practices Performance, authoring tools, HTML, databases CMS  Web strategy  Exploiting new stuff 1997 Today Meeting people, networking, “I am not alone”

6. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 6 We're Doing Well Positive aspects of the UK HE Web community: Willingness to share experiences (e.g. on web- support and website-info-mgt lists) A well-established annual event Avoidance of the ghetto mentality: senior managers, information professionals, designers, software developers, trainers, … meet, talk and socialise together Challenges we face: Open sources vs licensed software debate Role of standards (e.g. SMIL vs Flash) Managing with limited resources Managing service vs supporting user needs - cf Andrew Aird's talk in 2002 on "Pursuing A Radical Web Strategy"

7. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 7 What About Web Standards? Early Days HTML+CSS+WAI WCAG = (Netscape's support for CSS was a problem) Later XML a winner New W3C formats (PNG, SMIL, SVG, …) Limited take-up – and other solutions have benefits (e.g. Flash) More Recently Complexity and Confusion: Semantic Web, Web Services, deployment difficulties (e.g. XHTML 2.0), patent issues, process issues, …

8. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 8 Summary – UK HE Web In 2004/5 State of play in 2004/5: Web is mission critical We have Web teams and resources (but we'd like more) We have a Web/Information Strategy Focus tends to be on publishing Key applications areas:  Institutional Web site  Intranets  VLEs  Portals  Digital repositories  …

9. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 9 Web For 2006+ Significant changes seem to be happening: Blogs and Wikis RSS and Podcasting Mobile devices Pervasive networks (WIFi, broadband at home, 3G, …) Integration of services ("mashups") Microformats Google developments SOA Web 2.0

10. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 10 Web2MemeMap, Tim O’Reilly, 2005 Web 2.0 What Is Web 2.0? A marketing term, rather than a formal technical standards ("“an attitude not a technology”) Characteristics Of Web 2.0 Network as platform Architecture of participation Social networking Social tagging Remix and mash-ups Blogs & Wikis Syndication Users Always beta …

11. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 11 Web 2.0 Exemplars Let's look at some examples – presented to SWLAC staff

12. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 12 AJAX, XML, Web Services, … Does your campus map use Google Maps, or is it trapped in a GIF file?

13. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 13 Google Earth tour of IWMW events

14. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 14

15. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 15 Note: Greasemonkey environment Note: Greasemonkey environment

16. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 16 Note: BBC Backstage competition (free iPod??) Note: BBC Backstage competition (free iPod??)

17. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 17 Mobile Devices Potential of mobile devices in learning, research, etc. Lectures on iPods; student- created Podcasts;..

18. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 18 PDF Note that Talis (UK library vendor) are publishing Blogs and Podcasts about "Library 2.0" And UKOLN/CDNTL have also been experimenting Note that Talis (UK library vendor) are publishing Blogs and Podcasts about "Library 2.0" And UKOLN/CDNTL have also been experimenting

19. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 19 Are your University Podcasts available through iTunes? Aren't you missing out on a major distribution channel? (Note Student's Union radio shows are leading the way) Are your University Podcasts available through iTunes? Aren't you missing out on a major distribution channel? (Note Student's Union radio shows are leading the way) http://www.everyobject.net/static.php?page=interactive

20. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 20 UK participants include: National Archives Natural History Museum Creative Commons, Science Commons, Open Access, Open Source, … are helping to drive Web 2.0. What's the UK HE's take on this? Creative Commons, Science Commons, Open Access, Open Source, … are helping to drive Web 2.0. What's the UK HE's take on this?

21. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 21 http://creativecommons.org/ See "Let's Free IT Support Materials!" (EUNIS 2005 paper) as an example of what UK HE could be doing

22. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 22 http://www.flickr.com/ + “folksonomies” Issues "Claim your tag" (e.g. "iwmw- 2005") and convention (e.g. "kcl-publicity", "imperial- graduation-2006") for your photos, Blogs, etc.? NB londonterroristattack tags on 7/7 Should you proactively make you photos, etc. available? Issues "Claim your tag" (e.g. "iwmw- 2005") and convention (e.g. "kcl-publicity", "imperial- graduation-2006") for your photos, Blogs, etc.? NB londonterroristattack tags on 7/7 Should you proactively make you photos, etc. available?

23. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 23 Semantic Web or semantic web Semantic Web: W3C approach to provide a Web with meaning Hard Lower case semantic web / microformats Been waiting too long for the SW, let's make use of today's technologies Microformats – provide semantic in (X)HTML using, and Examples Define structured date about people, dates, etc. thus: Brian … XSLT transformations to VCard, etc NB Tom Heath's acronym harvester Examples Define structured date about people, dates, etc. thus: Brian … XSLT transformations to VCard, etc NB Tom Heath's acronym harvester

24. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 24 Blogs (1) Blogs User created content (diary-style interface) Student use:  Shared learning  Social use  Gaining experience  … Research use:  Dissemination  Engagement  Resource discovery  … Support use:  What's On, for sale, …  Email alerts  Creating RSS  …

25. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 25 Blogs (2) Challenges: Can we trust our users? Will we be sued, get embarrassed, …? In-house or externally-hosted? Should we do it? Can we afford not to? Experiences University of Warwick Blog service - see Podcast interview Interests from talk at IWMW 2005 and UCISA/UKOLN event, Nov 2004

26. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 26 Wikis (1) Wikis: Collaborative Web-based authoring environment Wikipedia is an example of a successful Wiki See QA Focus "An Introduction To Wikis" briefing document Issues: Can we trust the contributors? Wiki spam, grafitti, IPR, …? Best practices, interoperability, …

27. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 27 Wikis (2) Discussion: Can you afford not to contribute to Wikipedia? Can provide Wikis for use by small groups Can be used for annotation Is being increasingly used Implementation: Which is the best? Wiki migration UKOLN intends to host a Wiki (using MediaWiki) to develop community resources on CMSs, VLEs, …

28. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 28 Instant Messaging (1) Instant Messaging: Trivial chat which should be banned? Learning is a collaborative activity, so instant messaging, chat rooms, etc. are important Issues: Which environment: MSN, Yahoo, Jabber, IRC, … ID management Spamming, noise, etc What’s this got to do with the Web?

29. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 29 Instant Messaging (2) Meebo: A Web-based IM client An AJAX application Issues: How do you ban it? Interoperability http://www.meebo.com/

30. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 30 GMail Who needs a University email account when you can get 1 Gb from a GMail account (with AJAX interface) ? My Plans Get GMail ID Use it as secondary source for mailing lists Don't divulge ID (no spam) Wait and see what extras Google provide (RSS feed would be nice – now available) Gain feel for privacy issues My Plans Get GMail ID Use it as secondary source for mailing lists Don't divulge ID (no spam) Wait and see what extras Google provide (RSS feed would be nice – now available) Gain feel for privacy issues

31. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 31 Skype / VoIP VoIP is coming, so now’s the time to gain experiences. What are the implications of ‘free’ always-on telephony. You could all be broadcasting this talk now! VoIP: future of telephony Popular applications such as Skype: Integrated voice, IM, Web, (and now video) Can be high quality Free (or cheap to landlines & mobiles) Conference calls …

32. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 32 RSS E-mail has its role but: Why send messages which time-out when many users will read them too late? Why not use delivery channels which are spam-free? Why not use delivery channels which are more suited to receiving information (as opposed to discussions)? Why not allow users to select their preferred channels? RSS: Syndication of content A light-weight standard used in the JISC IE View on Web, using one of many dedicated RSS viewers, Opera or Pluck IE plugin Shouldn't RSS viewers be standard on desktops? Shouldn't we be creating RSS feed for news alerts – and not just adding to email overload? Shouldn't RSS viewers be standard on desktops? Shouldn't we be creating RSS feed for news alerts – and not just adding to email overload? Google for "rss is opt-in authenticated email" See RSS briefing paper

33. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 33 Deployment Challenges Such questions: How do we go about deploying Web 2.0? More importantly, should we (isn't it just hype?) Challenges: The Web policy is owned by the marketing people; they see the Web as a publishing vehicle not as a communications tool We can't use Creative Commons, open access, etc. We shouldn't make use of commercial services These services are: Technically / philosophically flawed Don't reflect our views on open source / standards Breaking out of our existing culture, software, …

34. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 34 Answers What are the answers to these questions? How do we face the challenge of 'disruptive technologies'? Is this a real issue – don't we simply absorb such technologies through evolution? Answers to questions will be sought at the UKOLN/UCISA/CETIS workshop on "Initiatives & Innovation: Managing Disruptive Technologies" at University of Warwick, 24 Feb 2006. Or submit a proposal for a talk or workshop at the 10 th Institutional Web Management Workshop at University of Bath, 14-16 June 2006. (Call for papers currently open)

35. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 35 Some Answers For Free Thoughts about deployment strategies: The need to be an adaptable/agile audience (cf. the Monarchy and the London Whale / Di's funeral) It's not new – cf eLib Hybrid Libraries, the RDN's Behind the Headlines as 'mashups' Benefits of modular approaches to reflect the diversity of the HE environment (cf E-Frameworks and SOA approach to development) If you don't:  Your rivals will  Your departments will use the stuff anyway  Who needs central services when we can get better services for free from Google, Yahoo, … !

36. A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 36 Discussion Questions, comments, etc. welcome