1. The Web In The 21 st Century Brian Kelly UK Web Focus UKOLN University of Bath Bath, BA2 7AY UKOLN is supported by: Email B.Kelly@ukoln.ac.uk URL http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/

2. 2 Contents Where Are We Now? The Original Web Architecture Architectural Developments Deployment Issues Discussion

3. 3 About Me Brian Kelly: UK Web Focus – a JISC-funded post to advise HE and FE communities on Web developments Based in UKOLN - a national focus of expertise in digital information management based at the University of Bath Involved in Web since 1993, while working in Computing Service at University of Leeds Close links with Computing Service and Library communities

4. 4 Look Back at Web Conferences W3C Advisory Committee Meeting – June 1998 Held at CERN, Switzerland W3C staff and AC Reps (from computing companies) using mobile phone and laptop for Internet access during talks WWW9 Conference – May 2000 Laptop and mobile, digital cameras are mainstream (e.g. Weblogs for realtime trip reports) WWW10 Conference – May 2001 Wireless LANs and laptops Web access pervasive (free 5 mins at Heathrow, unlimited access throughout Hong Kong – shopping malls, cafes, etc)

5. 5 How I Use The Web Today Recently I have: Used a Web kiosk at London and Leeds train stations to view sports results on the BBC Web site (Australia won!) – free for selected Web sites, otherwise 50p for 5 minutes Used a Web kiosk in a pub in Leeds to read my email using a Web-based email client (£1 for 10 minutes) Viewed the Guardian regularly on my Palm PDA Installed parts of the W3C, JISC Web sites, etc … on my Palm

6. 6 Where Are We Now? Current position: Awareness that resource management is critical Integration with legacy systems E-learning is seen as important But: Have we yet grasped importance of pervasive networking? Is our institutional decision-making processes hindering developments? Will we lose out to:  Microsoft.net (or Sun’s ONE) and Web services  Harvard-online, MIT-online, etc.  Student Web sites, or Web services aimed at students Are we still too institution-centric, and missing out on distributed “Web services”?

7. 7 Standards, Architectures, Applications, Resources This talk touches on several areas Architectures: models for implementing systems Applications: software products used to implement systems Standards: concerned with protocols and file formats Open standards vs. Proprietary HTML / XML vs. PDF CSS / XSL vs. HTML Which standards are applicable NT / Unix File system / database application HTML tools / content management Apache / IIS FrontPage / Dreamweaver Oracle / SQLServer ColdFusion vs ASP Development vs. Migration costs Use of in-house expertise In-house vs. out-sourced Licensed vs. open source Resources: financial and staff costs needed to implement systems Is this a frightening Thatcherite term?

8. 8 Standards Need for standards to provide: Platform independence Application independence Avoidance of patented technologies Flexibility ("evolvability" - Tim Berners-Lee) Architectural integrity Long-term access to data Ideally look at standards first, then find applications which support the standards Difficult to achieve this ideal!

9. 9 How Does The Web Work? The Web has three fundamental concepts: URLs: addresses of resources HTTP: dialogue between client and server HTML: format of resources The Netsoft home page 1User clicks on link to the address (URL) http://www.netsoft.com/hello.html 2Browser converts link to HTTP command (METHOD): Connect to computer at www.netsoft.com GET /hello.html 3Remote computer sends file Welcome to Netsoft 4Local computer displays HTML file Web Browser Web server Welcome.. The Netsoft home page

10. 10 Approaches To HTML Emphasis on managing HTML resources inappropriate: HTML is an output format, which cannot easily be reused (e.g. WAP, e-Books, etc.) Need to manage HTML fragments (only partly achievable with SSIs) Need to manage collections of resources Need to have single master source of data Need to support new developments such as personalisation Difficult to integrate with new formats Issues Should we stop giving HTML courses? Should we stop buying HTML authoring tools? Issues Should we stop giving HTML courses? Should we stop buying HTML authoring tools?

11. 11 XML XML: Extensible Markup Language A lightweight SGML designed for network use Addresses HTML's lack of evolvability Arbitrary elements can be defined (,, etc) Agreement achieved quickly - XML 1.0 became W3C Recommendation in Feb 1998 Support from industry (SGML vendors, Microsoft, etc.) Support in latest versions of We browsers

12. 12 XML Concepts Well-formed XML resources: Make end-tags explicit:... Make empty elements explicit: Quote attributes <img src="logo.gif" height="20" Use consistent upper/lower case XML Namespaces: Mechanism for ensuring unique XML elements : Insert M-471 There are several other XML goodies, such as XLink, XPointer, XSLT, etc which aren’t covered in this talk

13. 13 Getting to XML With XHTML XHTML: HTML represented in XML Some small changes to HTML: –Elements in lowercase ( not ) –Attributes must be quoted ( –Elements must be closed (.. ) –Empty elements must be closed ( ) Gain benefits from XML Tools available (e.g. HTML-Kit from http://www.chami.com/html-kit/ ) See, and

14. 14 RSS – An XML/RDF Application RSS (Rich / RDF Site Summary): Initially XML, now an RDF application Used for news feeds Of interest to JISC (DNER architecture) Lightweight approach that we should be investigating See example of an RSS authoring tool and parser at – to be demonstrated in Automated News Feed workshop.

15. 15 Model For News Feeds Good For User The end user can choose her news feeds, including local news, news from JISC services and news from third parties Good For Service The service can chose its own information flow model. Its news is disseminated automatically. Good For User The end user can choose her news feeds, including local news, news from JISC services and news from third parties Good For Service The service can chose its own information flow model. Its news is disseminated automatically. RSS Institution (e.g. Bath) RSS Community (e.g. MIDAS) RSS External (e.g. BBC) Local News.. JISC News.. National News XHTML converted to RSS Structured database converted to RSS Zope CMS outputs to RSS & XHTML To be covered in workshop session

16. 16 Position Today What should we be doing today? Move away from creating new content in HTML Move to XHTML as part of the migration Deploying XML applications Storing structured information in a neutral database Using a CMS to manage our content Deploying B2B applications to avoid human bottleneck (such as RSS) Note that these are aspirations. We will, of course, be constrained by existing systems, resource implications, vested interests, inertia, etc.

17. 17 The CMS To The Rescue HTML authoring tools have their limitations (as has HTML itself). A CMS (Content Management System): Allows fragments to be managed Allows collections to be managed Allows resources to be stored in a neutral format (backend database) Allows resources to be reused Often provides access control Often provides workflow processes and project management Issues CMS can be expensive CMS can be free but have support implications Which one to choose? Issues CMS can be expensive CMS can be free but have support implications Which one to choose?

18. 18 What About Tomorrow? Two interesting areas: The Semantic Web Will allow intelligent agents to know about resources AI and ontologists meet the Web Uses RDF (Resource Description Framework) – W3C’s framework for metadata Some concerns over scale of problem See Web Services One of the highlights of the recent WWW10 conference

19. 19 Web Services The Web: Initially used for viewing static resources Then interactive services built (e.g. e-learning) We now want: Programmable Web services which can be used by other Web services using standards Web protocols We have experience of the first generation of externally-hosted Web services (stats services, voting systems, etc.) - see. The next generation will be programmable and machine- understandable Note that concerns over outsourcing may be an issue We have experience of the first generation of externally-hosted Web services (stats services, voting systems, etc.) - see. The next generation will be programmable and machine- understandable Note that concerns over outsourcing may be an issue

20. 20 Example Some examples at gotdotnet.com : Mailsender Thumbnail Generator Concepts been around for some time (see Auditing & Evaluating Web Sites workshop) Now being standardised (UDDI, WSDL, SOAP, …) http://www.gotdotnet.com/playground/ services/thumbnailgen.aspx

21. 21 We’ve Been Here Before Reusable components available on the network: Sounds like COM/DCOM, CORBA, etc. for reusable program components Network services for use within a community: Sounds like JISCmail, RDN, EDINA, MIMAS, BIDS, Mirror Service and other JISC Services It’s outsourcing – but it’s OK! Web Services And UK HE / FE Communities Sounds like a great idea: We’ve the organisational framework to develop national services (JISC, etc.) We’ve got the network We’ve a community which is willing to exploit centrally-provided services and wants to avoid reinventing the wheel (haven’t we?) Web Services And UK HE / FE Communities Sounds like a great idea: We’ve the organisational framework to develop national services (JISC, etc.) We’ve got the network We’ve a community which is willing to exploit centrally-provided services and wants to avoid reinventing the wheel (haven’t we?)

22. 22 Currently... End user Local contentNational contentInternational content Web We should be moving away from providing separate Web services with their own interfaces …

23. 23 Currently... End user Collection Description (e.g. Agora) User Profile (e.g. Headline) Authentication (Athens) Local contentNational contentInternational content Web … and separate metadata repositories and access services (which are sometimes centralised) … Agora and headline are eLib Hybrid libraries

24. 24 Future... Content End user User profile Collection description Authentication Metadata Services / Access (Web) Services Application Services? Bookmarks Spell- checker.. and move to Web-accessible, machine-understandable Web services as well as seamless access to content Brokered access provide by institutional portal (MLE, …)

25. 25 Conclusions To conclude: HTML won’t do the job XHTML is a useful transition We’ll need a CMS to manage richly functional institutional Web services “Web services” should be important – and we shouldn’t be too concerned about using remote services Standards are important

26. 26 Questions Any questions?