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Standards For JISC's Digital Repositories Programme

This talk discusses the background and limitations of previous approaches in using standards for JISC-funded activities, and the layered approach developed by QA Focus. It also explores the need for flexibility in the standards infrastructure and compliance issues. The context and scope of the standards work, implementation, and content collation are also covered.

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Standards For JISC's Digital Repositories Programme

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  1. http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/meetings/jisc-2006-03/http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/meetings/jisc-2006-03/ Standards For JISC's Digital Repositories Programme 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. Email B.Kelly@ukoln.ac.uk Brian Kelly UKOLN University of Bath Bath This work is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 licence (but note caveat) * Subject to confirmation at end of talk UKOLN is supported by:

  2. 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

  3. Background • JISC's development programmes: • Traditionally based on use of open standards to: • Support interoperability • Maximise accessibility • Avoid vendor lock-in • Provide architectural integrity • Help ensure long-term preservation • History: • eLib Standards document (v1 – 1996, v2 – 1998) • DNER Standards document (2001) • which influenced: • NOF-digi Technical Standards • ..

  4. 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 • …

  5. 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?

  6. 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

  7. 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

  8. The Context • There will be a context to use of standards: • The intended use: • Innovative / research  Mainstream • Key middleware component  Small-scale deliverable • Organisational culture: • HE vs FE  Teaching vs Research • Service vs Development  … • Available Funding & Resources: • Significant funding & training to make use of important new standards • Minimal funding - current skills should be used • …

  9. Quality Assurance External factors: institutional, cultural, legal, … Context: Policies Prog. n Funding Research Sector … Annotated Standards Catalogue Purpose Governance … Maturity Risks Context: Compliance External Self assessment Learning … The Layered Standards Model Owner JISC 3rdParties JISC / project This 3-layered model has been recommended to JISC

  10. Scope Of The Standards Work • The Standards Catalogue: • Covers JISC's development programmes • Cover other JISC-funded development work • Is available for others (e.g. institutional work) • May be extended to cover • JISC-funded services • Cover JISC itself • Content areas will include: • Web  File formats • Metadata Resource discovery • E-learning  Addressing • Alerting  Authentication • E-Research  …

  11. Development Programme Report Advisers Committees JISC Manager Programme Team Contract Programme XX Call / Contract Proposals must comply with XYZ standard Proposals should seek to comply with XYZ Proposals should describe approach to XYZ Report must be in MS Word / … and use JISC template … Projects audited to ensure compliance with … Projects should develop self-assessment procedures and submit findings to JISC Projects should submit proposed approach for approval/information Implementation • How might this approach be used in practice?

  12. At this stage, a simple template will be used. This can be enhanced in future iterations. Collating The Content • We used a Wiki to collect initial information about the standards: • Being used by a small groups of trusted individuals • Avoids bottleneck for uploading and maintaining content • Note: the Wiki is used for creation & maintenance of the data and will not be the final repository

  13. Using The Model • Current status: • Initial work carried out by QA Focus project (2002-2004) • Several peer-reviewed papers* described aspects of work: • A Contextual Framework For Standards, E-Government Workshop, Edinburgh, May 2006 • A Standards Framework For Digital Library Programmes, ichim05 • Interoperability Across Digital Library Programmes? We Must Have QA!, ECDL 2004 • Deployment Of Quality Assurance Procedures For Digital Library Programmes, EUNIS 2003 • Ideology Or Pragmatism? Open Standards And Cultural Heritage Web Sites, ichim03 • Following validation of ideas, approaches are now being deployed by JISC • JISC's Digital Repositories Programme will act as initial pilot * Co-authors include staff from UKOLN, AHDS, TechDis & CETIS

  14. Accessing The Content http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/repositories/digirep/index/DigRepStandardsHome • Content available via the Digital Repositories Wiki

  15. 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

  16. Providing Feedback • As the JISC Digital Repositories programme is the pilot for 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.

  17. 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

  18. 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 implemented • JISC perspective: • JISC may define the QA procedures • And/or JISC may ask projects to define their own QA policies and procedures

  19. Framework Standards … Context SupportInfrastructure QAFramework Policies User Experiences Compliance Funder'sExperiences 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 Standards The Standards Catalogue can be integrated with the JISC's 'Framework'

  20. 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.

  21. 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 

  22. 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

  23. 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

  24. Extending The Model • Joint UKOLN / TechDis / OSS Watch work has extended the layered model to other related areas Context: Policies Sector Funding Culture Resources … Annotated Catalogues Standards Software Accessibility … Context: Compliance External Self assessment Learning … • 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

  25. 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

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