Publishing An eJournal Publishers Requirements

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Publishing An e-JournalPublishers Requirements
Pres 6
UKOLN is funded by Resource The Council for
Museums, Archives and Libraries, the Joint
Information Systems Committee (JISC) of the
Higher and Further 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.
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Session Aims

• In this session we will
• Discuss what publishers might expect from our Web
  publication(s)
• Highlight any issues which will need to be
  resolved in order to satisfy these requirements
• Look at some examples

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Exercise
E

• Complete exercise on Publisher Requirements
• What publisher requirements have you identified?
• What issues need to be addressed?

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Publisher Requirements
Functionality
Promotion
Ability to deploy new functionality
Support Users
Techniques to promote the publication
Support the user requirements which have been
identified
Statistics
Statistics on use of publication

• Publisher Requirements

Support Authors
Support the author requirements which have been
identified
Technical Issues
Scalable architecture
Resources
Quality
Databases / CMS
Ensure the service works
Solutions matchstaff expertise
financialresources
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Contents

• Identifying Publisher Requirements
• Promoting the Publication
• Statistics
• Syndicating Content
• Maintaining Content
• Standards
• Architecture
• Applications

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Find Article From AltaVista

• Search engines can drive much traffic to a
  Webzine, esp. if articles contain unusual names
• Be proactive in ensuring e-journals are indexed
  by major search engine vendors
• Ensure that e-journals are indexed in a timely
  manner (just before new issue released)
• Provide a search engine friendly site map (e.g.
  issue or volume table of contents) containing
  lists to all (all new) articles and submit it to
  search engines

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Tools

• Many tools are available for submitting Web sites
  to search engines, including desktop applications
  and Web services
• NOTE
• Submit the URL of a page with links to all pages
  (e.g. table of contents, site map, Whats New
  page)
• Beware of spam

http//www.scrubtheweb.com/
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Has It Worked?

• After indexing
• Use (e.g.) AltaVista search facility to count
  nos. of pages it has indexed
• Use tools to check position for typical query
  (e.g. Tracerlock)

http//www.tracerlock.com/

• Tracerlock sends regular emails with info on
  position of query in AltaVista
• Why is my Webzine not in top 10 for query?
• Should I resubmit?
• Is the service incorrect?
• Should I use another service?

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Avoid Junk Being Indexed

• A search for your Webzine gives you
• The pre-release information, contained in the
  editors personal home page
• The pre-publication Web site
• To avoid this happening make use of a robots.txt
  file and the Robot Exclusion Protocol (REP)

NOTE Think about this from the start Once a page
is indexed, its difficult to get it removed
robots.txt
User-agent Disallow /
You can also control robots by using the ltmeta
linkrobots contentnoindexgt tag in HTML
pages (e.g. dont index news pages)
Pre-release Web site
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Approaches to Statistics

• Cultivate Interactive uses two externally hosted
  statistical services
• Nedstats (stats for individual articles)
• SiteMeter (stats for entire Webzine)
• and analysis by WebTrends

http//sm6.sitemeter.com/default.asp?actionstats
sitesm2-exploit-homereport33

• Externally-Hosted
• Minimal resource requirements
• Extra info (PC analysis)
• Email notification
• Loss of info
• Reuse may be difficult

See lthttp//www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue23/web-focus/gt
and lthttp//www.exploit-lib.org/issue7/statistics/
gt
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Other Indicators

• Web stats are of uncertain quality due to effects
  of caching, robots, single visitors, etc.
• Other useful performance indicators
• Nos. of links to your online publication
• Proportion of publication which has been indexed

http//www.altavista.com/
http//www.linkpopularity.com/
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News Feeds For Others To Use

• You can provide news feeds from your Webzine
• Additional dissemination
• Remote site drives traffic to you

• UKOLN has developed CGI and Javascript parsers
  for RSS news feeds
• CGI version works for any browser, but use
  requires CGI privileges
• JavaScript version requires JS-support, but can
  be used by HTML author

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Auditing And Monitoring

• You can make use of Web-based services to audit
  and monitor your electronic publication
• Web Site Health Check
• Check HTML and CSS compliance, performance,
  download times, etc using DrHTML, NetMechanic,
  etc.
• Accessibility
• Browser emulators and accessibility checkers such
  as Bobby
• Dissemination
• Check link popularity, pages indexed, etc using
  LinkPopularity
• Monitoring Server Availability
• Notification if server is unavailable, such as
  WatchMyServer.com

See workshop materials at lthttp//www.ukoln.ac.uk/
web-focus/events/workshops/stimulate-2001/benchma
rking//gt
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Article Maintenance

• Web sites deteriorate
• Information becomes out-of-date
• Hot news becomes stale news
• Links start to break
• Metadata changes (email and postal address of
  author, etc.)
• New formats are introduced (HTML -gt XHTML)
• New functionality is introduced (automated
  translation)
• What should be done if
• The links from an article become broken
• The authors email and postal address changes
• An article now contains incorrect information
• You wish to change the font used initially
• Should
• They be fixed
• They be left dont tamper with published
  information, as this sets a dangerous precedent

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What Is The Article?

• A published article may be treated as an
  aggregation of resource fragments
• HTML / CSS stuff (DTD, ltHTMLgt elements, CSS
  attributes, )
• Navigational fragments (header, footer, )
• Branding (name of publisher, funder, etc.)
• Core content (the bit which would be printed in a
  conventional publication)
• Additional end user functionality (translate this
  article, find similar articles, annotate article,
  )
• Publisher / author functionality (validate this
  article,..)

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Permanent Record or Updated Resource?

• How do you regard an article published in a
  Webzine
• A fixed record which should not be changed
  (unless, possibly, a formal update / reprint
  process is gone through)?
• A resource which can be updated according to
  pragmatic criteria (e.g. fixing errors,
  annotating when out-of-date, but not changing the
  original meaning)?

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A Pragmatic Approach

• There is a need for a policy (and related
  procedures).
• This will reflect the role of the Webzine.
• How about
• The meaning of published information will not be
  changed once an article has been published
• References (hyperlinks) which become broken will
  be annotated if they are fixed or removed.
  Original link information will be available to
  the reader.
• The look-and-feel of the Webzine may be changed
  retrospectively for published articles. If
  feasible, it should be possible for a reader to
  return to the original look-and-feel
• Changes may be made to HTML, etc. elements.
• Changes made be made to the navigational and
  functional fragments for an article

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Standards

• The publisher should be interested in standards
• To maximise potential readership
• To provide long-term access to resources
• To avoid application / platform dependencies
• We use
• HTML (moving to XHTML, but issues over tools)
• CSS (but issues over browser support)
• Dublin Core metadata in HTML
• We are thinking about
• Transforming XHTML into WML using XSLT
• Providing DC metadata in RDF
• Using RSS for news feeds
• Other areas which inform our research activities

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Architecture

• Key feature use of neutral fragments which are
  transformed, easily managed and reused

Title Author URL date
Render article

• Add new functionality
• Print all
• Translate
• See also

variables
Header Footer Article body Translate See also
Render issue

• Manage functionality
• New translation
• Update Web stats
• Manage metadata

content
Createsite map

• Add new format, etc
• PDF, WAP, eBook, email, ...
• Full list of authors
• User-defined views

DTD CSS HEAD
HTML
Various fragments are processed by server
scripts and can be managed
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Applications

• What applications can be used to implement this
  architecture?

Cultivate Interactive
MS SiteServer Mainly used for indexing
function Also provides site management
tools Author upload facility is of interest HTML
Authoring Tools HotMetal / FrontPage / HTML
Kit Web Stats Nedstats / Sitemeter
(Web-based)Misc submission tools Software
Development (ASP Scripts) Visual Interdev Notepad
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Applications Licensed or Free?

• Background
• Limited budget available for Cultivate
  Interactive
• Limited resources for software development
  (bought-in Postgraduate help)
• Provided opportunity to evaluate / report on
  potential for (free) Web-based services - ASPs
  (Application Service Providers)

• Use of mainly free Web-based service
• Web statistics Submission to search engines
• Polling services Monitoring service
  availability
• See article at lthttp//www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue23/
  web-focus/gt but note potential problems due to
  decline in ad revenue

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Applications A CMS

• The model for Cultivate Interactive has worked
  well
• For a larger-scale project, a CMS (Content
  Management System) may be needed
• Manage access by multiple editors
• Manage access rights (design can change
  appearance, editor can change content)
• Manage workflow processes
• Manage application development
• Issues
• Open source (e.g. Zope) vs. Licensed
• Capital costs vs development costs
• Entry point (size of Webzine, budget, )
• Support

author ? editor ? pre-release site ? review ?
publication
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Identifiers

• Publisher should provide short memorable
  identifiers
• Its wise to avoid platform application
  dependencies
• Its also useful to use directories to group
  issues and articles

Short, memorable, language format independent
www.cultivate-lib.org/issue3/presentations/
www.cultivate-lib.org/issue3/presentations/intro.h
tm
Longer, format specific, scope for confusion
.htm or .html
www.cultivate-lib.org/issue3/presentations/intro.a
sp
Also application-specific, possible mirroring /
indexing problems
www.cultivate-lib.org/get-article?issue3titlepr
esentations
Very application specific, not indexable, caching
and mirroring problems But use of a database
helps with Web site maintenance NOTE database
generated resource can have static URL
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Mirroring / Preservation

• If your Webzine is popular you be be asked if it
  can be mirrored (low bandwidth areas, Intranets,
  ..)
• Also consider the long term preservation
• Issues
• Absolute vs relative URLs
• The root of your Web site and its structure
• Mirroring the content or the application
• Sucking the Webzine vs pushing (replicating) it
• Navigation on a mirrored site (where is home?)
• Mirroring exactly vs rewriting bits
• Own domain for apps (eg. wwwsearch.cultivate-int.o
  rg)

If a site can be mirrored easily, its more
likely to be easily preserved or transferred to
other platforms. So even if mirroring doesnt
appear to be of interest, there may be other
benefits
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D-Lib

• D-Lib is mirrored at UKOLN at lthttp//mirrored.uko
  ln.ac.uk/lis-journals/dlib/dlib/dlib.htmlgt

• NOTE
• Search and the results are not at mirror
• Long URL of UK mirror

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Developments With Identifiers

• Library professionals have an interest in
  persistent addressing
• URLs break when
• An organisation is renamed
• A Web site is reorganised
• Possible solutions include
• DOIs (but mirroring issues)
• OpenURLs (address mirroring and resolution)

See lthttp//www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URIgt for
background info
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Questions

• Any questions?