UKOLN is supported by:

1. Think Digital: Best Practices for Digital Resources across the Cultural Heritage Sector Marieke Guy Interoperability Focus UKOLN is supported by: www.bath.ac.uk

2. What is Good Practice? The simple answer is it depends on what you are trying to achieve…. • Starting point: I want to create a quality resource that is usable and successful • Be aware of standards, guidelines and regulations • Use check lists and toolkits • Use quality resources • Learn from others experience • Plan, plan, plan • Test, test, test • Sustainability

3. Which Way? The easy way? Saddik: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sadik/48394182/ The hard way? Kenworker: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kenworker/53367117/

4. Standards • Standards are essential when creating electronic resources because: • they allow data interchange and interoperability • they allow the management of information • they result in greater use • they increase the longevity of electronic resources • They give our funders value for money • Open versus proprietary standards? • Which standard should we use? • Keeping to the standards once chosen

5. Open Standards Open Standards are required for several reasons: • Application Independence: To ensure that access to resources is not dependent on a single application. • Platform Independence: To ensure that access to resources is not restricted to particular hardware platforms. • Long-term Access: To ensure that quality scholarly resources can be preserved and accessed over a long time frame. • Accessibility: To ensure that resources can be accessed by people regardless of disabilities. • Architectural Integrity: To ensure that the architectural framework for the Information Environment is robust and can be developed in the future

6. e.g. MS Office formats, Adobe's PDF, Flash, gif and Java. Proprietary Standards • Proprietary refers to formats which are owned by an organisation, group, etc. • Widely used proprietary standards are often referred to as industry standards. E.g. Microsoft Excel (spreadsheets) • Sometimes companies which own proprietary formats may choose to make the specification freely available • Alternatively third parties may reverse engineer the specification and publish the specification • In addition tools which can view or create proprietary formats may be available on multiple platforms or as open source • But proprietary formats have not been approved by a neutral standards body • The organisation owning the format may change the format or the usage conditions at any time

7. Standards Example: CSS • The presentation language of Cascading Style Sheets was invented in 1996 by W3C • It was an attempt to increase the presentational sophistication and accessibility of the Web by eliminating browser-specific mark-up • Began to be properly used in 2001 by standards compliant browsers • The most current standard is CSS Level 3 • The benefits of CSS are that it: • separates style from content - reuse • lightens the bandwidth of your pages • increases the odds that people and devices will be able to access the sites you create http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/

8. Standards Example: CSS a:link {color: blue} a:visited {color: #000080} a:active {color: #000080} body { background-image: url(/web-focus/resources/css/web-focus.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-attachment: fixed; margin-left: 10%; font-family : verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; } hr.top-banner-divide { color: blue; border-width: 0px; height: 10px; background:#0000cc; }

9. Not using Standards • Although use of recommended standards and best practices is encouraged, there may be occasions when this is not possible: • Building on existing systems • Standards immature • Functionality of the standard • Limited support for standards • Limited expertise • But beware…. • Work on a migration strategy

10. Which Standards? • Again, it depends…. • What standards are available? • "The great thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from." • Standards bodies • What are others using? • What are we already using? • What can we stick to?

11. Standards Example: DC • Dublin Core is a metadata standard used to describe digital objects originally created in Dublin, Ohio, by the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) • The Dublin Core Metadata Element Setconsists of 15 optional metadata elements: 1. Title 5. Publisher 9. Format 13. Relation 2. Creator 6. Contributor 10. Identifier 14. Coverage 3. Subject 7. Date 11. Source 15. Rights 4. Description 8. Type 12. Language • The elements can be refined or qualified • The benefits of DC are its simplicity, extensibility, semantic interoperability, international consensus, and modularity • Work on DC has led to the development of the Resource Description Framework (RDF) http://dublincore.org/

12. Standards Example: DC <meta name="DC.title" content="UKOLN" /> <meta name="DC.subject" content="national centre; digital information management; cultural heritage; library; awareness; research; information services; public library networking; bibliographic management; distributed systems; metadata; resource discovery; conferences; lectures; workshops" /> <meta name="DC.description" content="UKOLN is a national focus of expertise in digital information management. It provides policy, research and awareness services to the UK library, information and cultural heritage communities. UKOLN is based at the University of Bath." /> <meta name="DC.creator" content="Web-support Team, web-support@ukoln.ac.uk" /> <meta name="Keywords" content="national centre, digital information management, cultural heritage, library,

13. Guidelines and Regulations • Guidelines are an indication or outline of policy or conduct • Regulations are rules dealing with details or procedure • External e.g. accessibility • Internal e.g. Our digitisation project handbook • Guidelines can be a good thing if they provide genuine guidance without excessive coercion • There is a danger of them being too precise or too restrictive • Must be possible to apply them locally • Regulations can be useful but again be careful be careful of forcing people into corners

14. Use Quality Resources • Resources need to be credible and from a worthy source • Remember: “[The Internet creates] the pretense that we are getting all the information we want. That misconception prevents people from even looking for the truth.” Mark Crispin Miller • Note and cite all resources used • More quality resources later….

15. Learn from Other’s Experience • Learn from successful outcomes • Learn from mistakes • Learn from how people have dealt with problems • Use case studies and examples • Ask people for advice • Use email/phone hotlines run by credible organisations

16. Standards Example: RSS • RSS is a dialect of XML and was originally designed by Netscape but has been significantly changed over the years • It has ‘forked’ twice: • Rich Site Summary (RSS 0.91) • RDF Site Summary (RSS 0.9 and 1.0) • Really Simple Syndication (RSS 2.0) • Atom? • It is used primarily for Web syndication and news feeds • The benefits of RSS are that it allows: • Information to be reused – Web sites and aggregators • Issues within the Web standards community… http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss

17. Standards Example: RSS <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:syn="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/" xmlns:admin="http://webns.net/mvcb/" xmlns:taxo="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/taxonomy/" xmlns:ev="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/event/" > <channel rdf:about="http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/"> <title>UKOLN News</title> <link>http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/</link> <description>UKOLN-related news including new additions to the UKOLN Web site.</description> <dc:language>en-GB</dc:language> <dc:date>2005-10-26</dc:date> <items>

18. Checklists and Toolkits • Part of the project planning • Very useful! • Digital Imaging: A Practical Handbook by Stuart D. Lee • why digitise checklist • digitisation ready reckoner for time and costs • decision matrice • Many digital toolkits available now • Create your own

19. Plan, plan, plan • Importance of project planning • identify specific tasks • estimate time to complete them and associated costs • identify who will perform the tasks • highlight areas of risk (contingency plans) • Project lifecycle • Importance of project management • Importance of input from steering groups and stakeholders (user requirements) • Like DIY, the key is all in the preparation!

20. Test, test, test • User testing is key at many points in the project lifecycle • Can be time consuming and expensive • Jacob Nielson – test 5 users • Test many aspects (from TASI): • the search and retrieval mechanisms • Metadata • Image quality and usability • Navigation • Aesthetics • Accessibility • Registration systems

21. Standards Example: PNG • Portable Network Graphics (PNG) is a is an extensible file format for the lossless, portable, well-compressed storage of raster images • PNG was created by the PNG Development Group to both improve upon and replace the GIF format with an image file format that does not require a patent license to use • PNG is an international standard (ISO/IEC 15948) and a W3C Recommendation - PNG-8, PNG-24 • A PNG file consists of a header and chunks of information: • IHDR - header • PLTE - palette • IDAT - image • IEND - end • Metadata http://www.w3.org/Graphics/PNG/

22. Sustainability • You have a responsibility to the digital resources you are creating to: • maintain usability, durability and intellectual integrity of the information • keep access to resources • avoid wasting money • Sustainability = exit strategy (should be thought of in the plan) • New sources of funding • New audiences and markets • Repurposing content • Institutional resources - Support from within, reuse of hardware, skills and content • Preservation

23. Sustainability • All digital materials are at risk - physical damage to the storage medium, technological changes that leave the data unreadable e.g. The Doomsday project – saved! • Why preserve? • To maintain usability, durability and intellectual integrity of the information • Access to resources • Avoid wasting money • Need to think about the software/hardware, storage, metadata, user needs

24. Any Questions?