A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Quality Assurance For Museum Web Sites: Review Brian Kelly UKOLN University of Bath Bath, BA2 7AY URL UKOLN is supported by:

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 2 About UK Web Focus / UKOLN UK Web Focus: Advisory service based at UKOLN Provides advice and support to the Higher and Further Education communities and (since August 2003) the UK cultural heritage sector Provided by Brian Kelly Project manager for JISC's QA Focus work UKOLN: Centre of expertise in digital information management Funded by JISC and Resource Based at University of Bath

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 3 The Need For QA There is a growing need for quality assurance (QA) procedures for Web sites to ensure that Web sites: Work Function correctly in a range of environments Are widely accessible Are future-proofed Comply with legislation (e-GIF, accessibility, …) and appropriate guidelines and best practices

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 4 The Importance Of Standards Open standards are needed: To avoid platform dependencies To avoid application dependencies To support preservation strategies To facilitate interoperability But: Standards may be difficult to use It may be difficult to choose appropriate standards Checking compliance with standards can be difficult There is a need for advice

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 5 The Need For Advice Web development communities can benefit from advice: Covering choice of standards Covering compliance checking procedures Covering other aspects of best practices Which is informed by the community: culture, resources, …

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 6 QA Focus QA Focus: Funded by JISC to support a number of JISC's digital library programmes Based at UKOLN and AHDS Is developing a QA methodology and producing support materials Methodology and materials are available for use by other sectors, providing acknowledgements given

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 7 QA Focus Advice QA Focus briefing documents: Brief, focussed Cover standards, best practices and compliance checking Areas include Web, digitisation and standards, with metadata, software development and service deployment being written See

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 8 QA Focus Case Studies QA Focus case study documents: Brief, focussed Describe approaches taken by projects to deployment of standards and best practices Areas include Web, digitisation and standards, with metadata, software development and service deployment being written See

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 9 Quality Control vs Quality Assurance What we often do: Respond to problem reports Run checks when new Web site launched Quality Control: Run checks (possibly on ad hoc basis) Spot errors Fix them Quality Assurance: Document policies Systematic checking of compliance with policies Documented audit trails Fix workflow process which caused error

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 10 QA Focus Methodology A QS Focus methodology is being developed: Aims at being lightweight and usable by community Seeks to be seen as beneficial to developers and not something which is imposed by an external body Based on well-established QA principles

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 11 QA Focus Policy Example (1) QA Policy: Web Standards The Web site will be based on XHTML 1.0 and CSS 2.0. The Web site will use PHP to merge XHTML fragments into an XHTML template The Web site will access a backend database, which also uses XHTML Authors should use an HTML editor which does not create proprietary extensions or inhibit use of clean XHTML. HTML-kit is recommended. Resources derived from MS Word/PowerPoint need not be updated to valid XHTML.

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 12 QA Focus Procedure Example (1) QA Procedures: Web Standards When creating or updating resources the,validate tool should be used When creating or updating stylesheets or embedding stylesheets in HTML resources the,cssvalidate tool should be used At least quarterly a recursive validation of the Web site should be carried out using,rvalidate An audit trail of the quarterly survey should be published and comments provided on any problems

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 13 QA Focus Policy Example (2) QA Policy: Links Internal links within the Web site should always work Links to remote sites should work when page created Links to key remote resources should be fixed if broken Links in 'publications' need not be fixed; if resources allow it, broken links may be flagged.

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 14 QA Focus Procedure Example (2) QA Procedure: Links When creating or updating resources the,checklink tool should be used At least quarterly a recursive link check of the Web site should be carried out using,rchecklink An audit trail of the quarterly survey should be published and comments provided on any problems

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 15 Any Questions?