1 If I Could Start All Over Again: Lessons To be Learnt From The HE Community Brian Kelly UK Web Focus UKOLN University of Bath Bath, BA2 7AY UKOLN is funded by the Library and Information Commission, 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

2 Contents Introduction Scale of the Challenges What's the Web Site For? Before Authoring: Web Site Structure Case Studies: Home PagesSearch engines 404 error pagesWeb Gateways Need for a More Sophisticated Approach? Conclusions

3 UK Web Focus UK Web Focus: JISC-funded post Advises UK HE community on web developments Represents JISC on World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Organises events (e.g. national web managers workshop) Dissemination of information: e.g. columns in Ariadne and Exploit Interactive

4 About You How many: Will be responsible for developing a new library web site from scratch (or from small beginnings)? Are responsible for managing a mature web service and are looking to develop the service further?

5 Scale of the Challenges How big is your web site? How big might it be in 2 year's time? How many pages, images, links, etc will you have to manage? Will your web site evolve from "brochureware" to having a functional role in your organisation?

6 Leeds Web Site Analysis of Leeds Library web site

7 Nottinghamshire Library web site Analysis of Nottinghamshire CC Library web site

8 What's Your Web Site For? University web sites: Originally developed by enthusiasts Often made use of innovative new technologies Deteriorated in quality as: –Information management became more important that software development –Enthusiasts left or responsibilities transferred Remember a web site is for life, not just for Christmas

9 Need for a Web Strategy Is a need for strategic planning to address: What is the purpose of the web site? Who will manage it? What resources are available? Who Will Rid Me Of This Troublesome Beast? Talk by John Slater (PVC at Kent) Web sites are becoming a drain on University resources Promised benefits aren't being delivered Web site editors need to understand University's strategies and priorities

10 Before You Start Authoring Domain Names Can you get a short domain name (e.g. lib.rutland.org.uk ) rather than being deep in the Council hierarchy (e.g. cc.org.uk/departments/library/ ) Short domain names are: More memorable More likely to be indexed by search engines (typically only index 500 pages per domain) Is this possible in Council environment?

11 Before You Start Authoring Directory Structure Define the directory structure for the web site "Shallow" web sites are more memorable and more likely to be indexed "Deep" web sites may be more maintainable Use of directories for grouping related files is useful (e.g. keep all automatically generated files together) Note this refers to the underlying directory structure – not the surface menu structure

12 Directory Structure Need to have provide a balance File ….. File ….. File

13 Internal Linking Use Directories To keep URLs short and unambiguous link to directories and use default filenames rather than Keep File Extensions Simple Avoid links to "strange" file extensions for key areas ( foo.asp, foo.cgi, foo.pl?ann-rep%7Eyear=99 ) As these: May not be indexed Are not particularly memorable

14 Case Studies Case studies based on looking at relevant communities can be very useful: Am I being left behind? Am I at the leading edge – and do I want to be? It's often better to criticise external examples UKOLN's WebWatch project (1997-9) used automated tools to monitor web communities The WebWatch column in Ariadne continues to survey communities such as UK HE

15 Case Study: Home Pages Look at What do the sites have in common? Do you have any comments?

16 Case Study: 404 Errors Look at What do the sites have in common? Do you have any comments?

17 Comments on 404 Pages Ariadne article surveyed 404 pages in UK HE: Many sites have forgotten about this page A number have provided innovative features: –Well-designed, using corporate look-and-feel –Links to site maps –Embedded search interfaces See

18 Case Study: Search Engines Look at What do the sites have in common? Do you have any comments?

19 Comments on Search Pages Ariadne article surveyed searching services pages in UK HE: Many sites have forgotten about this page A number have provided innovative features: –Well-designed, using corporate look-and-feel –Links to site maps –Embedded search interfaces See

20 Not Just For Humans Web sites were originally designed for viewing by humans Now web sites have a role in business to business (B2B) communication: Automated news feeds Automated transfer of resources … Structured information is needed to support such automation XML is the key data format

21 Example – Museum Portal The 24 Hour Museum is an example of a portal to UK Museums which processed structured information (opening time, news, etc.)

22 What About HTML? HTML is: Easy to use Successful But: Can't be used for arbitrary document structures (e.g. ) Difficult to develop new applications - e.g. display total of fines: XML likely to be important in the future

23 Content Management In the future we will need more than HTML authoring tools We will need tools that: Enable fragments to be managed (e.g. SSIs for standard navigation elements) Enable collections of related resources to be managed Store resources in a richer format than HTML can provide (i.e. XML) Enable web resources to be re-purposed Should we forget about HTML authoring tools and move to other technologies?

24 What About Dynamic Web Sites? What are dynamic web sites / DHTML? Animated web pages Interactive web pages (filling in forms, chat facilities, games) Links with legacy systems (e.g. OPACS, maybe with book reservations) Use of backend databases for web site management

25 Conclusions To conclude: Creating web pages is easy Managing a corporate web site is difficult The costs can easily escalate You should have a web strategy to help with planning and resourcing Planning is important You should consider options of scaling up from simple tools versus use of corporate publishing systems Collaborate!