A centre of expertise in digital information management Standards For JISC's Digitisation Programme Brian Kelly UKOLN University of Bath Bath Email [email protected]UKOLN is supported by: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/meetings/jisc-200 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. This work is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial- ShareAlike 2.5 licence (but note caveat) * Subject to confirmation at end of tal
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A centre of expertise in digital information management Standards For JISC's Digitisation Programme Brian Kelly UKOLN University of Bath.
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A centre of expertise in digital information management
Acceptable Use PolicyRecording/broadcasting of this talk, taking photographs, discussing the content using email, instant messaging, Blogs, SMS, etc. is permitted providing distractions to others is minimised.
Acceptable Use PolicyRecording/broadcasting of this talk, taking photographs, discussing the content using email, instant messaging, Blogs, SMS, etc. is permitted providing distractions to others is minimised.
This work is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 licence (but note caveat)
* Subject to confirmation at end of talk
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Contents
This brief talk will cover:• Background to use of standards in JISC-
funded activities• Limitations of previous approaches• Layered approach developed by QA Focus• Doing the work• Supporting the work• Building on the work
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Background
JISC's development programmes:• Traditionally based on use of open standards to:
Support interoperabilityMaximise accessibilityAvoid vendor lock-inProvide architectural integrityHelp ensure long-term preservation
which influenced:• NOF-digi Technical Standards• ..
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Lessons Learnt
Experiences of the QA Focus (and NOF-digi Technical Advisory Service) revealed problems:
• Lack of knowledge of standards• Lack of resources• Immaturity of standards• Failure for standards to take off• Difficulties when building on existing work• Uncertainty of what to do if standards not
implemented correctly• …
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
What To Do?
QA Focus project asked by JISC to make recommendations on how to address such tensions
Should we suggest:• Mandation of use of defined open standards;
penalty clauses for non-compliance; … (central government way?)
• Leave everything to the marketplace (Thatcherite approach)
• Or is there a third way?
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Need For Flexibility
There is a need for flexibility in the standards infrastructure:
• Learning the lessons from OSI networking protocols (the great networking standard of the 1980s!)
Today:• Conveyor belt of great new Web standards is
slowing down• Questions as to whether Web (for example) is
becoming over-complex "Web service considered harmful" The lowercase semantic web / Microformats
• Lighter-weight alternatives being developed• Responses from the commercial world
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Compliance Issues
What does must mean?• You must comply with HTML standards
What if I don't? What if nobody does? What if I use PDF?
• You must clear rights on all resources you digitise
• You must provide properly audited accounts
What if I don't?
There is a need to clarify the meaning of must and for an understandable, realistic and reasonable compliance regime
There is a need to clarify the meaning of must and for an understandable, realistic and reasonable compliance regime
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
The ContextThere will be a context to use of standards:
• The intended use: Mainstream Innovative /
research Key middleware component Small-scale
deliverable
• Organisational culture: HE vs FE Teaching vs
Research Service vs Development …
• Workflow issues:• Can metadata always be created independently of context of
use of resource?
• Available Funding & Resources: Significant funding & training to make use of important new
standards Minimal funding - current skills should be used
• …
A centre of expertise in digital information management
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
About The Content
The information provided aims to be simple and succinct (but document will still be large when printed!)
Standard: Dublin Core About the Standard: Dublin Core is a metadata standard made up …Version: New terms are regularly added to … Maturity: Dublin Core has its origins in workshops held …Risk Assessment: Dublin Core plays a key role …. It is an important standard within the context of JISC development programmes. Further Information:
• DCMI, <http://dublincore.org/> • …
Author: Pete Johnston, UKOLN Contributor: Date Created: 04 Oct 2005 Update History: Initial version.
Example
Note that as the standards catalogue is intended for wide use the contents will need to be fairly general
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Providing Feedback
As the JISC Digitisation programme is an early user of this approach to standards, your feedback is important
The Discussion tab can be used by registered users to provide:
• Specific feedback on the standards entries
• Suggestions for further information (e.g. case studies you've written)
More generic feedback on the model, its applications, etc. may be provided using other mechanisms? Opportunity for discussion on best options.
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Quality Assurance Infrastructure
Will projects and services implement standards as required? How will we know?Compliance checking:
External checkers: Approach used in NOF-digi. But:• Concerns over big brother• Does big brother have expertise?• Alien to HE culture• Standards not embedded into working practices
(done because funders want it)Self-assessment:
• Approach recommended by QA Focus (and should be done even if external checking)
• Need for projects/services to define their QA processes
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
QA Framework
QA Focus project:• Developed lightweight quality assurance
framework designed for JISC's development programmes
• Methodology validated by Duke/Jordan review of JISC's standards
QA methodology:• Project should provided document policies• Projects should implement systematic procedures
for ensuring their policies are being implementedJISC perspective:
• JISC may define the QA procedures• And/or JISC may ask projects to define their own
QA policies and procedures
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Standards Catalogue Process
There's a need for developing and enhancing the standards catalogue in order to:
• Update with new standards• Learn from feedback and experiences
Review
Policies
Context
Compliance
SupportInfrastructure
QAFramework
User Experiences
Funder'sExperiences
Standards
…Standards
Framework
The Standards Catalogue can be integrated with the JISC's 'Framework' The Standards Catalogue can be integrated with the JISC's 'Framework'
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Sustainability
How do we • Sustain, maintain and grow the standards
catalogue?• Develop a sustainable support infrastructure?• Ensure that JISC supports learning organisations
(and that JISC is a learning organisation)
Options:• More funding for support infrastructure• Exploit learning gained by projects, reuse
experiences, encourage sharing, etc.
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Support Infrastructure (1)
Experiences of QA Focus:
• 90+ briefing documents & 30+ case studies
• Licensed (where possible) under Creative Commons
• UKOLN are continuing to publish new documents (documents on Folksonomies, AJAX, Podcasting, Wikis, etc. published recently)
Case Study Template• About the Project• Area covered• Approach taken• Lessons Learnt /
Things We'd Do Differently
• …
Case studies:• Opportunity to describe
experiences in specific areas• Standard template to ensure
consistency & provide focus• Allows UKOLN to promote
projects' work • Project get better Google rating
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Support Infrastructure (2)
What you can do:
Case Studies• On train home use template to summarise one
aspect of your project work• Upload to Wiki
Briefing Documents• Write a (brief!) briefing paper on area not
currently covered and send to Brian Kelly
Why?• Others (e.g. me) can cite your work• Use of a CC licence enables you, your work, your organisation, … to
become known in other sectors – you can benefit from this• You will be seen to be good JISC citizens• You may get the 'feel good' factor – it's not just open source software
developers who can share their work
Why?• Others (e.g. me) can cite your work• Use of a CC licence enables you, your work, your organisation, … to
become known in other sectors – you can benefit from this• You will be seen to be good JISC citizens• You may get the 'feel good' factor – it's not just open source software
developers who can share their work
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Support Infrastructure (3)
How do we maintain the information about the standards?
• Your feedback• Linking to related information in Wikipedia (the
world can help the updating)• Uploading information to Wikipedia – the wider
community can help to update and maintain it• Making information available with CC licences –
so others can use it, update it – and hopefully give feedback on enhancements
Note that this approach of collaboration, sharing and trust reflects the Web 2.0 culture which is currently informing various aspects of Web development
Note that this approach of collaboration, sharing and trust reflects the Web 2.0 culture which is currently informing various aspects of Web development
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Extending The Model
Joint UKOLN / TechDis / OSS Watch work has extended the layered model to other related areas
This model (described in paper accepted for E-Government Workshop in Edinburgh in May 2006) aims to provide a consistent and understandable model:
• For use by the funders• For use by projects• Applicable to the diversity to be found in the sector• Applicable to the technical complexity and diversity
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Conclusions
To conclude:• Approach to developing standards catalogue
based on QA Focus's experiences, and its review by Jon Duke/Andy Jordan
• Acknowledges importance of context• Allows for hard-line implementation (which is
needed in some areas)• Projects need to be actively involved in process,