Quality Assurance QA Focus & TASI Workshop

1. Quality AssuranceQA Focus & TASI Workshop Hamish James QA Focus (AHDS)

2. Aims of the Day • To introduce TASI and QA Focus • To explore and discuss QA in the digitisation process • To explore and discuss how we can employ quality assurance techniques in our projects

3. Timetable • In the morning: quality assurance during digitisation/content creation • Lunch 12:30-1:30 • In the afternoon, wider issues: • Available QA resources • QA for metadata • QA for websites • Time for discussion and other issues • Finish by 4:00

4. Why is QA Needed Now? • In the past: • "let a 1,000 flowers bloom" • Diversification as no killer application then (it could have been Gopher!) • Things are different now: • The Web is the killer application • There is now a need for interoperability (not just self-contained independent Web sites) • JISC Programmes increasingly intended as service • development and not 'speculative' research • There is a need for publicly-funded services to be seen to provide value for money

5. QA Focus • QA Focus: • Funded under the JISC 5/99 programme • Covers technical interoperability (digitisation, Web, metadata, software development & service deployment) • Agreement to develop QA methodology which can be applied to other JISC programmes • Understanding that this is a new area of work with a steep learning curve • Initially provided by ILRT and UKOLN (1.0 FTE) • Provided by UKOLN and AHDS since 1 Jan 2003

6. Where We Fit

7. Terms: Quality • “Quality is the ability of your product to be able to satisfy your users” • The concept of making products fit for a purpose • Minimising defects and problems

8. Quality Control • Product testing, requirements verification • Total Quality Management • Six Sigma • Checking that what you have done is what you expected to do • Goal is to prevent faulty products leaving the ‘factory’

9. Quality Assurance • Assurance that you are doing the right things in the right way • Often treated as synonymous with process assurance • Policies, procedures and practices for achieving best practice and meeting standards • QA could include quality control

10. Approach Taken • Two possible approaches to ensuring compliance with standards and best practices: Enforce • Inspect all project’s work • Strict auditing, with penalties for no-compliance Encourage • Training for project staff • Developmental, explaining reasons for compliance, documenting examples of best practices and providing advice on implementation and monitoring

11. The QA Focus Methodology • The QA Focus methodology which we are advising projects (and JISC) to deploy: • Seeks to be lightweight and achievable • Seeks to provide benefits to the projects themselves, as well as (downstream) interoperability benefits to JISC programmes • Consists of: • Documented policies • Procedures for monitoring compliance with policies • Audit trails • Sharing and collaboration

12. Benefits to You • The benefits to projects of taking a systematic approach to QA include: • The quality of the product will be improved, enhancing user perception and usefulness • Should improve chances for future funding • QA culture can be reused • Greater likelihood of interoperability of project deliverables and deployment into service environment • Self satisfaction

13. Challenges Challenges you’ll face will include: • Resources • Ensuring that you stay on schedule • Developing a QA culture within your organisation/team • Communication internally and with external bodies • Dealing with sceptics • Setting a standard

14. QA Framework • QA Focus's methodology: • Make systematic use of a self-assessment toolkit to validate QA • Provide policies which document standards and best practices you will deploy, the architecture used for implementation and the approach to checking compliance • Implement in areas such as metadata, software development, digitisation, … • Mandate QA when commissioning new work