Surveys of Scottish 5/99 Project Web Sites

1
Surveys of Scottish 5/99 Project Web Sites

• Brian Kelly
• UK Web Focus QA Focus Manager
• UKOLN
• University of Bath
• Email
• B.Kelly_at_ukoln.ac.uk

• Contents
• Background
• Summaries of Surveys
• HTML Compliance
• Accessibility
• Availability on a PDA
• Availability on the Internet Archive
• Implications
• Development of a Self-Assessment Toolkit

2
Background To The Surveys

• QA Focus
• Is addressing QA in several areas (e.g. access
  digitisation, service deployments, etc.)
• Initial activities are based on areas of
  expertise of QA Focus Team members (e.g. Web and
  images)
• This presentation covers an initial set of
  surveys concerned with Web access

3
About The Surveys

• The surveys
• Made use of freely-available Web-based services
• The survey methodology is transparent usable by
  all
• The findings are reproducible
• The aims of the surveys are to
• Identify best practices which can be adopted by
  others
• Provide examples of approaches which can be used
  by projects either individually or in clusters
• Covered FAILTE, Xgrain, EEVL Computing Gateway,
  Using Numerical Data, Lemur and e-MapScholar
  project Web sites

4
Survey 1 HTML Compliance (1)

• A survey of compliance with HTML standards
• Aims to provide an indication of compliance with
  HTML standards across projects
• Survey looks at project entry points
• Survey uses W3Cs HTML validation service
• Findings
• One entry point is compliant with XHTML
• One entry point does not have a DTD
• Four entry points have no Character Encoding
• Three entry points have small number of errors
• Two entry points have a large number of errors

5
Survey 1 HTML Compliance (2)

• Compliance with HTML standards is needed to
• Avoid browser vendor proprietary features
• Maximise accessibility
• Allow resources to be repurposed by applications
  other than browsers
• Allow Web sites to claim compliance with HTML and
  accessibility standards (which may be mandatory)
• Discussion
• FAILTE shows an attractive entry point which
  complies with the latest HTML standards
• Other sites need to address HTML tools and
  workflow issues

6
Survey 1 HTML Compliance (3)
http//failte.ac.uk/
7
Survey 2 Accessibility

• A survey of compliance with accessibility
  standards
• Aims to provide an indication of compliance with
  W3C WAI guidelines across projects
• Survey looks at project entry points
• Survey uses the Bobby accessibility testing
  service
• Findings
• One entry point is compliant with WAI AAA
  (FAILTE!)
• Four entry points are compliant with WAI AA
• One entry point is not compliant
• NOTE
• Use of automated tools will not detect all
  accessibility problems.

8
Survey 3 Access Using PDA

• Why?
• We can expect to see increasing use of PDAs
• If Web sites can be accessed on a PDA they are
  likely to be reusable by other applications
• How?
• The AvantGo Web site was used and Web sites made
  available on a Palm PDA
• Findings
• All Web sites could be accessed on a PDA
• The entry point for some sites was not held in a
  project sub-directory sothe entire Web site was
  transferred.

9
Survey 4 Availability On Internet Archive

• A survey of the availability of project Web sites
  on the Internet Archive was carried out
• This may provide a emergency backup if a project
  ceases to exist and Web site disappears
• If Web sites can be stored successfully on the
  Internet Archive they may be harvested by other
  mirroring/archiving services
• Findings
• Five Web sites are available in Internet Archive
  
• One Web site is not available
• NOTE
• No archives are available since Nov 2001

10
Discussion

• Survey Findings
• The findings are available at lthttp//www.ukoln.ac
  .uk/qa-focus/surveys/scottish-projects-09-2002/gt
• Note that
• A league table is inappropriate (projects have
  different objectives, levels of resources, etc.)
• The findings may need interpretation
• Support Documentation
• Where findings show that advice is needed we
  will advise JISC Advisory Service or produce
  materials ourselves
• Initial documents available at lthttp//www.ukoln.
  ac.uk/qa-focus/documents/gt

11
Discussion

• We hope that
• The survey findings will be of interest to
  projects and will allow you to address problem
  areas and implement examples of best practices
• You will be able to implement more comprehensive
  testing across project Web sites
• Note that
• The surveys are intended initially for
  discussions within projects
• If serious problems are found QA Focus will
  raise concerns with the project. If problems
  are not addressed we will raise the matter with
  JISC (as we are funded to do).

12
Development Of A Self-Assessment Toolkit

• QA Focus
• Aims to develop a self-assessment toolkit which
  will allow projects to check their QA procedures
  in areas including
• Access (e.g. Web) ? Digitisation
• Metadata ? Software development
• Service deployment ?
• The Web surveys are the first step
• Your feedback is welcomed