Developing a Quality Culture For Digital Library Programmes

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Developing a Quality Culture For Digital Library
Programmes
Co-Authors Marieke Guy UKOLN Hamish James AHDS

• Author Presenter
• Brian Kelly
• UKOLN
• University of Bath
• Bath

Email B.Kelly_at_ukoln.ac.uk URL
lthttp//www.ukoln.ac.uk/qa-focus/gt
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Contents

• Background
• The QA Focus Project
• Work to date
• Future Activities
• Links with the Wider Community

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Background

• In many digital library programmes there has been
  a philosophy based on use of open standards to
• Avoid application lock-in and platform
  dependencies
• Minimise migration costs
• Provide long-term access to scholarly resources
• But
• Little policing of compliance with open standards
• Adoption of "let a thousand flowers bloom"
• This approach
• Probably sensible approach in mid 1990s (Gopher?)
• Not desirable now
• Web is the killer application XML is killer
  format
• Need to maximise access support M2M apps ...
• Need to protect investment from public funding

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QA Focus

• JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) has
  funded QA Focus project to
• Support its Information Environment digital
  library programmes
• To development a QA (quality assurance)
  methodology which can be applied to future
  programmes
• QA Focus
• Provided by UKOLN and AHDS
• Project manager is Brian Kelly team members are
  Marieke Guy (both UKOLN) and Hamish James and
  Gareth Knight (AHDS)

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Developmental Culture

• Possible approaches towards QA and compliance
  with standards
• Policing approach
• Developmental approach
• QA Focus takes a developmental approach
• Explains reasons for standards best practices
• Provides lightweight methodology for supporting
  use of standards and best practices
• Encourages community to share its approaches
• Seeks to encourages uptake of its methodology
  within institutions as well as by projects

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QA Focus Methodology

• The developmental approach being taken includes
• Surveying community to identify areas of best
  practices in which improvements can be made
• Providing advice in appropriate areas
• Commissioning cases studies which describe the
  approaches projects have taken in complying with
  standards and best practices
• Documenting tools and architectures for
• Implementing standards best practices
• Monitoring compliance
• Providing examples of policies
• Advising funders on approaches for future
  programmes

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Areas

• QA Focus is addressed the following areas
• Web
• Digitisation
• Metadata
• Software development
• Service deployment

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Surveying the Community

• Initial set of findings available from
  lthttp//www.ukoln.ac.uk/qa-focus/surveys/web-10-2
  002/gt

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Documentation Advice

• Advisory briefing documents are being produced
• These are
• Brief, focussed documents
• Informed by findings of the surveys

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Documentation Case Studies

• Case Studies are being commissioned
• These are
• Written by projects themselves
• Describe the solution adopted to a particular
  problem
• Include details of lessons learnt not just a
  press release!

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Self Assessment Toolkit

• Further Deliverables
• We are developing a self-assessment toolkit
• The toolkit will consist of
• Examples of QA procedures
• Documented examples of use of testing tools
• Self-assessment questionnaires
• Advice on standards and best practices
• Case studies
• FAQs

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Promoting Use Of Compliance- Checking Tools

• As an example of approach which provides easier
  access to testing tools, see the ,tools approach
  deployed on UKOLN Web site.
• This approach
• Applies to all resources on Web site
• Covers HTML and CSS validation and various other
  tests
• Some recursive apps (,rvalidate)
• Easily implemented with single line redirect

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Policies

• How do you know what you should do if you don't
  have documented polices?

You may find it useful to develop similar
policies yourself for example, a policy of the
accessibility of your Web site
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Next Work Areas (1)

• Metadata
• Is the metadata format syntactically correct?
• Do cataloguing rules exist?
• Does the metadata comply with cataloguing rules?
• Have default values been left?
• Does the project have an appropriate architecture
  for creating and managing metadata?
• What mechanisms are in place for checking
  metadata?

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Next Work Areas (2)

• Software Development
• What is the purpose of the software?
• What documentation exists?
• Does the output from the software comply with
  appropriate standards?
• How will the software deliverable be deployed?
• What steps have been taken to ensure that the
  software can be easily deployed in the delivery
  environment?

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Next Work Areas (3)

• Service Deployment
• Where will the project deliverables be deployed
  in a service environment?
• What steps have been taken to ensure that the
  service delivery environment matches the
  development environment?
• What legal, IPR, issues are there in moving
  from a project to a service environment?
• What funding issues may there be in deploying the
  project deliverables?

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The QA Focus Methodology

• The QA Focus methodology we will be recommending
• Projects should provide policies which document
  standards they will use, the architecture used to
  implement the standards and the approach to
  checking compliance
• Advice should be provided which explains the
  standards, approaches to checking compliance and
  implementation architectures
• Case studies should be provided which describe
  examples of implementation
• Projects should make use of a self-assessment
  toolkit to validate their QA procedures
• This methodology should be embedded in
  contractual arrangements

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Working With The Wider Community

• We feel the methodology we propose
• Is lightweight and easy-to-understand
• Can benefit a wide range of communities, and not
  just project developers in the IE programme
• We also feel
• Our approach will benefit by working with the
  wider community
• We therefore
• Are making our resources freely available
• Welcome contributions from the wider community

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Conclusions

• To conclude
• There is a clear need for QA in order to
• Develop interoperable digital library services
• Obtain value-for-money from investment from
  public funds
• QA needs to be addressed from the start of
  project work
• QA therefore needs to form part of contractual
  agreements between project developers funders
• The QA Focus methodology provides an approach to
  supporting QA in digital library programmes
• We welcome feedback and the opportunity to talk
  with possible collaborators