Developing a Quality Culture For Digital Library Programmes

1. UKOLN is supported by: 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@ukoln.ac.uk URL: <http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/qa-focus/>

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

3. 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

4. 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)

5. 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

6. 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

7. Areas • QA Focus is addressed the following areas: • Web • Digitisation • Metadata • Software development • Service deployment

8. Surveying the Community • Initial set of findings available from <http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/qa-focus/surveys/web-10-2002/>

9. Documentation: Advice • Advisory briefing documents are being produced • These are: • Brief, focussed documents • Informed by findings of the surveys

10. 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!

11. 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 • …

12. 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

13. Policy example Policy: Web Standards Standard: XHTML 1.0 and CSS 2.0 Architecture: Use of SSIs and text editor Exceptions: Automatically-derived files Checking: Use ,validate after update Audit Trail: Use ,rvalidate monthly and document findings 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

14. 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?

15. 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?

16. 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?

17. 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

18. 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

19. 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