1. A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk www.bath.ac.uk UKOLN is supported by: What's Wrong With Today's Web? Emma Tonkin, Rosemary Russell Interoperability Focus, UKOLN

2. A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk www.bath.ac.uk Contents About UKOLN What's Wrong with the Web? Reusability and standards Some handy technologies Solutions and best practices Questions and discussion

3. A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk www.bath.ac.uk About UKOLN Core funding from MLA and JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) Cross-sectoral remit Our audiences include: –HE/FE (L&T, research, admin) –Cultural heritage (museums, public libraries, archives) –National libraries (British library) –e-government –NHS/Health sector –International digital library research community About 30 staff Mix of technical support and development, advisory and research capabilities Based at University of Bath

4. A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk www.bath.ac.uk About Interoperability Focus Funded by MLA & JISC Since 1999 Cross-sectoral remit 4 staff Activities include Standards work Brokerage Support & advice Dissemination About UKOLN

5. A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk www.bath.ac.uk What's wrong with the Web? Depends on your perspective, but... Finding what you want –Overload – Google –Relevance –Provenance –Quality-Assurance Accessing resources –Accessibility –Usability –Legislation IP issues: licensing Lost resources, broken links Support Reusability –Learning objects, data, articles, images, programs –Interoperability using common standards and protocols

6. A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk www.bath.ac.uk Reusability Change in attitudes Focus on creating static product –Maintenance problems: Broken links, changing technologies High costs New focus: reusable products 'Replacable' technologies Interoperability becomes vital

7. A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk www.bath.ac.uk Masterpiece...

8. A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk www.bath.ac.uk Reuse... Misguided Masterpieces: Mona Lisa Design by George Castaldo “Smile” and “teeth” by Guido Poggi

9. A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk www.bath.ac.uk Difficulties of reuse, maintenance Required: standards for –Storing information –Accessing information –Accessing functionality......maintaining order! Good standards often deceptively simple

10. A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk www.bath.ac.uk XML and Web services Based on HTTP (Web) and XML, the eXtensible Markup Language – a flexible basis for standard information formats Web services: “A standardized way of integrating Web-based applications using open standards over an Internet protocol backbone”

11. A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk www.bath.ac.uk XML, data, information Humans are good at interpretation, inference –eg. +44 (0) 1225 386580 Computers need more help Data with XML is self-describing –Data plus surrounding structure You may also hear of XSD –XML Schema Definition: describes XML structures (so you don't have to guess).

12. A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk www.bath.ac.uk XML example: RSS Uses XML to define a list of items: University of Bath Noticeboard http://www.bath.ac.uk/noticeboard/ A Web notice board for staff and students at the University. Book(s) for sale: 'Intermediate Microeconomics http://www.bath.ac.uk/noticeboard/18840.html For sale: R reg 1.9 TD Volvo V40 estate http://www.bath.ac.uk/noticeboard/1098447598-1915.html...

13. A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk www.bath.ac.uk Web page displaying RSS

14. A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk www.bath.ac.uk Creative uses of RSS feeds News feeds from web sites, blogs, content providers Publish your bookmark list Alternative interfaces: Bookmarks

15. A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk www.bath.ac.uk Data and presentation XML/XSL vs (X)HTML Example: OSS Watch –Page content in XML, rendered with XSLT stylesheets to: Standard HTML layout Single page HTML for printing Simple text PDF

16. A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk www.bath.ac.uk www.oss-watch.ac.uk

17. A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk www.bath.ac.uk Web Services Suite of standards + best practices Machine (m2m/b2b) interfaces between functional components on the Web Can be used for informational and transactional services Communicate using XML (and a protocol such as SOAP) Interface/functionality described,(WSDL), and published

18. A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk www.bath.ac.uk Example: The Google API Able to: –Perform searches and return results in XML –Get cached copy of page –Spell-check (“did you mean?”)

19. A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk www.bath.ac.uk RDN/Google spellchecker

20. A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk www.bath.ac.uk How does it work?

21. A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk www.bath.ac.uk Not just for Web pages Integration with –desktop software Research pane in MS Word –Client-side Web applications Flash, Java/.Net applets –Internet applications: Weather forecast, phonebook, TV guide...

22. A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk www.bath.ac.uk Office 2003 Research Library service (MSDN) http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url= /library/en-us/dnofftalk/Html/office03062003.asp Query Google web API from Research pane –Search from within Office –Written in C# or VB.net

23. A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk www.bath.ac.uk Searching Google in Flash eg. www.flash-db.com/google

24. A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk www.bath.ac.uk Aside: metadata, Dublin Core Metadata: data about data; information for cataloguing (for the Web…) Simple Dublin Core –15 elements –e.g. Title, publisher, creator, description, identifier

25. A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk www.bath.ac.uk Lost files, broken links Using a library... –Physical addresses 2 nd book, 5 th shelf, 1 st floor, Bath –Representative addresses ('in section') –Redirects ('look up ISBN in catalogue') –Books available from several locations...as with the Web –URLs, redirects, mirrors

26. A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk www.bath.ac.uk Traditional linking Link source Link destination hardwired link

27. A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk www.bath.ac.uk OpenURL style linking Link source One of many possible destinations Metadata and identifiers OpenURL resolver Chooses document delivery service (based on contextual information)

28. A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk www.bath.ac.uk PURLs Persistent Uniform Resource Locator Traditional URLs point to location: –http://www.site.com/resource.html PURLS point to an intermediate resolution service protocol server filename

29. A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk www.bath.ac.uk OpenURL “Providing access to an appropriate copy of a full-text article” Defines article by means of metadata: –issn=, date=, volume=, issue=, spage= URL sent to link resolver –Resolver uses metadata to identify article –Chooses appropriate target

30. A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk www.bath.ac.uk DOI: Digital Object Identifier “A system for identifying and exchanging intellectual property in the digital environment” A DOI is a unique ID controlled by a DOI registration agency, referring to a digital object Each DOI may be resolved to data associated with that digital object, eg. summary, article text...

31. A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk www.bath.ac.uk Improved resource discovery Two approaches to searching multiple databases: –Cross-searching (Z39.50, SRW) Inefficient on a large scale –Harvesting metadata centrally Efficient but requires agreed transport protocols, metadata formats, quality control and intellectual property/usage rights Result: OAI-PMH (Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting)

32. A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk www.bath.ac.uk OAI-PMH in a nutshell Data providers' records harvested by central service provider Records may be articles, images, learning objects, descriptions of museum artifacts... OAI is based around standards: –HTTP, XML, Dublin Core metadata Once metadata centrally available, search efficiency improves

33. A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk www.bath.ac.uk Z39.50 made easy: SRW! –Z39.50 – still not adopted on large scale –SRW - ‘low-barrier-to-entry solution’ more easily implemented retains many important aspects of Z39.50 (eg rich semantics developed over many years XML based carried via SOAP or in a URL (SRU)

34. A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk www.bath.ac.uk Exposing information Data providers can use both OAI and Z39.50/SRW OAI is used for metasearch engines to harvest records (to avoid slow cross- searching) SRW provides Web-based search capability for individual or metasearch hubs

35. A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk www.bath.ac.uk Exposing information: portals Study at Loughborough University: use of library databases rose by 609% after implementation of cross-search tool But don’t want to cross-search everything Subject portals ‘Portlets’ – functional modules (reuse within other portals)

36. A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk www.bath.ac.uk

37. A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk www.bath.ac.uk Best practices – what you can do tomorrow Publish content as RSS/XML eg. news Make data accessible via OAI-PMH, Z39.50/SRW Encourage community participation, publicise resources Provide and use web services Consider robust linking solutions Stick to standards!

38. A centre of expertise in digital information management www.ukoln.ac.uk www.bath.ac.uk Questions... Any questions?