1. Institutional Web Management Workshop - Sept 1998 slide 1 Events on-line Stephen Emmott Web Editor King’s College London King’s College London is dedicated to the advancement of knowledge, learning and understanding in the service of society.

2. Institutional Web Management Workshop - Sept 1998 slide 2 Introduction  About King’s –over 5000* staff; over 16,500* students; Expenditure of £254* million; 9 schools of study; 7 campuses across London –combination of centralized and de-centralized administration across the board  About my role –Web Editor –Central (and first) point of contact –Tension between requirements (plural) and resources (singular) *Projected figures for Autumn 1999

3. Institutional Web Management Workshop - Sept 1998 slide 3 Requirements  Current approach –Printing sets the standard –Limitations of print-based approach: content gathered manually; manual collation of content; batch-processing with infrequent updates; no-backtracking nor opportunities for alteration of content/ presentation once printed/ distributed  New approach –Collection: extracting content from the organisation –Storage: maintaining a single source –Distribution: access for all at minimal cost whilst offering the opportunity to alter content/ presentation at any time –Presentation: aspiring to the print standard

4. Institutional Web Management Workshop - Sept 1998 slide 4 Choosing a system  XML –Overview –Storage and granularity –XML is transparent, flexible, portable, and standardized  XML + ODB –The need to be flexible without loosing balance –About Frontier »Brief History »Using the system

5. Institutional Web Management Workshop - Sept 1998 slide 5 Implementation  The system has two key components: –The DTD (Document Type Definition) »The blueprint for the way in which the events content is encoded and the way in which it used/ manipulated in the system –The Frontier ODB (Object Database) »The system used to collect, parse (into XML), store and distribute events content »Built-in web-server  All transactions take place through the WWW - clients contribute content; server collects, stores and distributes content; clients access content

6. Institutional Web Management Workshop - Sept 1998 slide 6 Implementation: the DTD * *Please note: this DTD is subject to revision

7. Institutional Web Management Workshop - Sept 1998 slide 7 Implementation: overview Event page Event page Event page ContributorsFrontier ODB WWW pages Index page Link page

8. Institutional Web Management Workshop - Sept 1998 slide 8 Implementation: closer In - Event submitted via on-line form - Parsed into XML using DTD - Stored as a text object (string). Out -Each event is transformed into HTML and exported to file -Hierarchy of ‘Yahoo-style’ HTML link pages generated and exported to file - Main (index) page generated and exported to file - Exported pages uploaded to main College server via FTP Frontier ODB

9. Institutional Web Management Workshop - Sept 1998 slide 9 Demonstration  On-screen demonstration of the live system: –Consumers (users) viewpoint »See computer screen –Contributors viewpoint »See computer screen –The Administrator viewpoint »See computer screen

10. Institutional Web Management Workshop - Sept 1998 slide 10 Bibliography  Connolly, Dan. XML: principles, tools & techniques,World Wide Web Journal 2: 4, Winter 1997. –http://www.w3j.com/xml/ (table of contents)  Frontier web-site –http://www.scripting.com/frontier5/  In-progress –http://interaction.in-progress.com/xpublish u WebTechs Validation Service –http://valsvc.webtechs.com/url/  XML.com –http://www.xml.com/

11. Institutional Web Management Workshop - Sept 1998 slide 11 Software  Fetch (Mac only) : used for uploading files to the main WWW server –http://www.dartmouth.edu/  Frontier 5.0.1(Mac, Win’NT, Win’95) : the heart of the system –http://www.userland.com/frontier/trial.html  Xpublish 1.0 (Mac only) : generate and validate XML DTD –http://interaction.in-progress.com/xpublish  BBEdit 4.5 : general text editing –http://web.barebones.com/products/bbedit/bbedit.html

12. Institutional Web Management Workshop - Sept 1998 slide 12 Q & A  Any Questions?