QA Focus Surveys Of Project Web Sites - October 2002

On 31^st October - 1^st November 2002 the QA Focus team participated in an all-programme meeting held at the University of Nottingham. Shortly before the meeting a number of surveys of the JISC 5/99 project Web sites were carried out. A summary of the findings is given below.

About The Surveys

Please note the following:

The surveys have been carried out using a number of automated tools.

It is recognised that:

• The project Web sites have different purposes.
• Projects have a range of deliverables.
• Projects are at different stages, and some have finished.
• The survey tools have limitations.
• More comprehensive surveys will require manual analyses.

Despite these limitations, the surveys aim to provide an initial indication of the approaches taken by projects and of compliance with best practices.

Data Format Standards

1 - HTML Compliance Of Project Web Site Home Page

Summary: The W3C's HTML validation service was used to report on the compliance with HTML standards of project home pages.

Report: Report - Report Summary

2 - CSS Compliance For Project Web Sites

Summary: The W3C's CSS validation service was used to report on the compliance with CSS standards of project home pages.

Report: Report - Report Summary

Accessibility

3 - Accessibility Of Project Web Site Home Page

Summary: The Bobby automated accessibility checking tool was used to report on the accessibility of project home pages. Of the six pages surveyed two provided AA compliance with W3C WAI guidelines. The other pages contained a small number of accessibility problems, such as missing ALT tags.

Report: Report - Report Summary

Best Practices For Navigation

4 - 404 Error Pages For Project Web Sites

Summary: The 404 error pages for project Web sites were analysed.

Report: Report - Report Summary

Repurposing Resources

5 - Availability of Project Web Site in The Internet Archive

Summary: The 'Internet Archive' Web site was access in order to discover if project Web sites were available in the archive.

Report: Report - Report Summary

6 - PDA Access To Project Web Sites

Summary: The pages allows project Web sites to be accessed on a PDA using the AvantGo service.

Report: Report

7 - Ease Of Conversion To XHTML

Summary: An analysis of a survey of the ease with which the entry point for project Web sites can be converted to XHTML.

Report: Report - Report Summary

8 - Ease Of Conversion To WML

Summary: An analysis of a survey of the ease with which the entry point for project Web sites can be converted to WML, the format used by WAP phones.

Report: Report - Report Summary

Best Practices For Web Servers

9 - Analysis Of Project Web Site Server Software

Summary: An analysis of project Web site server software is available.

Report: Report - Report Summary

Metadata / Repurposing

10 - Analysis Of Dublin Core Metadata On Project Web Site Entry Point

Summary: An analysis of the use of Dublin Core metadata on the entry point of project Web sites. The results are obtained by an XSLT extraction of an XHTML representation of the page.

Report: Report - Report Summary

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Accompanying Posters

A number of posters have been produced based on the surveys.

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Accompanying Documentation

A number of documents have been produced to provide advice on best practices related to the areas covered in the surveys.

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Background To The Surveys

QA Focus is developing a toolkit which will allow projects themselves to validate their own procedures for monitoring compliance with standards and best practices.

The first step in the development of the toolkit is the use of automated Web-based tools which are freely available for use by all. The tools will be used with clusters of JISC 5/99 projects in order to gain experience in the use of such tools.

We hope that the comparisons which can be made across projects will help in ensuring that examples of best practices can be identified allowing the approaches used to be adopted by other projects.