IWMW 2002: Parallel Workshop Sessions

A1: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The E-Strategy

2002-06-18

This session will cover the various opportunities and challenges facing staff involved in trying to develop an institutional e-strategy. The session will include a mix of short presentation and group work and discussion. The presentation and discussions will focus on various aspects of an e-strategy, including the migration from campus intranets to campus portals, the hybrid library, increasing demand for personalisation and tailoring of Web content, the role of the DNER, knowledge management, VLEs/MLEs and MIS systems.

A2: Right People, Right Stuff, Right Pain?

2002-06-18

Intranets are about rather more than the glib sales pitch concerning internal Web pages. Perhaps the major issue is ensuring that the right people can see the right material - not too much, not too little. In a controlled intranet environment people should get to see information because of one of a number of non-exclusive 'roles' that they have (e.g. staff & lecturer & member of history department & student advisor & member of senate & member of AUT). The challenge is how to capture these roles and convert them into information access authorisation decisions. The solution, perhaps, is a mixture of process and technology, together with a bit of joined-up thinking. This session will examine the issues and the group models conceived and implemented independently at Glasgow and York Universities using LDAP based directory services. It will explore what can be achieved and through active participation of delegates we are keen to see how well the Glasgow and York models face up to the information authorisation needs of participants own institutions. There is scope for discussion on top down vs. bottom up grouping, mega groups and groups of groups, and inter-institutional interworking (good/bad idea, feasibility, Internet 2/Shibboleth, PAPI and the successor to ATHENS). We expect you to come to the session knowing a reasonable amount about the way in which your institution functions and the fundamentals of web authentication and authorisation. You might expect to leave with some idea of how you might use groups and LDAP directory services to model the non-exclusive roles which people have in your institution and the problems that you will encounter along the way. You could perhaps learn something about where digital certificates might fit into the picture.

A3: Testing Web Site Accessibility

2002-06-18

This session will provide Web Managers and Developers with an opportunity to test for accessibility on their own project Web sites. Web accessibility will be introduced with an overview of disabilities that need to be considered in the development of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). A brief overview of UK policies relating to Web site accessibility and responsibilities explained. After which participants will then test their Web sites using HTML, CSS validation tools as well as a set of written guidelines. Finally, techniques on how to incorporate accessibility into Web projects will be examined.

A4: XML Everywhere

2002-06-18

XML has gained significant ground over the last few years with more and more people looking to adopt it to help them solve a wide range of problems. This workshop will look at ways in which XML is being used in higher education and the reasons for using XML, including simplifying site maintenance and interoperability. We will also discuss some of the options available for using XML on your Web server, with an overview of a number of XML publishing frameworks.

A5: The Value of Metadata and How to Realise It

2002-06-18

At this workshop, attendees will examine and discuss: The value of using metadata as a aid to reliable retrieval both within individual Web sites and across distributed sites (the pervasive Web). What the barriers to effective use of metadata are and how they can be overcome. Who should be responsible for creating and maintaining metadata - resource creators; web-masters; librarians? Whether embedding and harvesting or a central database is the best approach.

A6: QA For Web Sites

2002-06-18

Quality and reliability are the most critical aspects of any Web site, and making sure that your site retains both may take some work. This workshop will discuss Quality Assurance procedures for Web sites. Participants will be asked to consider what can go wrong on their Web site, why exactly things are going wrong, how Web site owners can find out when things go wrong and finally what can be done when things go wrong. In this session we will consider how you can integrate important QA aspects, like testing, into your current evaluation procedures and in doing so significantly improve your Web site, its infrastructure and content.

A7: Is Your Institution's Web Site Legal?: A Guide To Keeping Your Web Site Compliant With Recent Legislation

2002-06-18

In this practical interactive session a mock Web site is provided and participants will be asked to spot where improvements should be made. It is IT Law for the non-lawyer and should have relevance for all those involved in information technology in an institution. Topics that the session will cover include Data Protection, Freedom of information, Human Rights, Intellectual property, e-Security as well as internet and e-mail monitoring and liability. The object is to highlight the common pitfalls, to evaluate the risks involved and to suggest actions that will assist universities and colleges to better manage their Web sites.

A8: Providing 360 degree Panoramic Scenes on the Web

2002-06-18

This workshop session aims to introduce and instruct participants in the use of 360° panoramic scenes on the Web. Such scenes allow Web users to explore freely and interact with photographs rather than simply to view a picture. A proof of concept example of such a scene can be seen at

B1: Information Strategies - An Essential Navigational Tool?

2002-06-19

This workshop will report from the work of EVINCE, a HEFCE Good Management Fund project investigating social and cultural aspects of IT-related change. This session will provide stories and case study reports, together with group activities designed to help participants assess the value of strategic tools and the ways in which strategy might be used to inform and guide university (Web) planning and business activities, in their own institution. It will include discussion as to how strategy needs to be formulated and managed in a dynamic fashion so as to ensure it maintains value and currency throughout an HEI in a fast changing world.

B2: The Perfect Portal ... is a Popular Portal

2002-06-19

We might think we can build one, but how can we make sure people use it? We might have great content, but will users be able to find it? What really makes a great portal? What makes users return again and again to a portal? In this workshop we will initially explore what we mean by a portal and then identify ways of making visiting our portals a regular and enjoyable event for our users.

B3: Usable Design and Accessible Web Sites

2002-06-19

While awareness has never been higher of the need to ensure Web sites are accessible to the widest range of users, in many cases accessibility "solutions" have been implemented which have resulted in web resources which still retain significant usability problems for disabled users - and often introduce usability problems for other users. This is unfortunate, given that in theory, implementing accessible design techniques should result in a more usable web site for all. This session will look at how accessibility good practice, such as the W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), can be integrated with principles of usable Web design so that accessibility solutions are also usable. As an example, Jakob Nielsen's usability design guidelines for disabled users will be referenced. Specific areas of web design which can cause disabled users usability problems, such as text-only sites, forms, page layout and site navigation will be addressed.

B4: Delivering XML in an Apache Environment

2002-06-19

This session will discuss practicalities of delivering XML on standard Web servers running Apache. It will concentrate on the AxKit system, which is a mod-perl addon for managing dynamic translation of XML to HTML on the server. AxKit, like its Java-based cousin Cocoon, offers an immediate and extensible way to serve up XML documents. We will look at issues such as mapping XSLT stylesheets to documents, cacheing, and the creation of dynamic pages using XSP. We will attempt to tinker with and enhance a running AxKit setup on the basis of audience suggestions and queries.

B5: Weblogs and Blogs: What Are They? What Can They Be Used For?

2002-06-19

This hands-on session will provide participants with an opportunity to make use of Weblog (also known as blogs or bloggers) technologies. The potential for use of such technologies within an institutional context will be discussed. The emphasis in the session will be on the use of weblogs as personal content management systems.

B6: Will The Real Mr Homepage Please Stand Up?

2002-06-19

Increasingly we are finding our corporate identities being hijacked, misused or misrepresented by other organisations or individuals. This could either malicious or done with the best intentions, intended to deceive or enlighten. In this session we will be looking at the variety of ways in which our Web pages and corporate identities can be used without our knowledge or approval, both from within and without the organisation. What are the implications of such use? What can be done to control it? We'll also consider cases of desirable use - how do we ensure that our content when accessed through - or held on - other sites is maintained and current? Contributions to this work shop in the form of horror stories - and methods used to address the problem - will be particularly welcome.

B7: Dynamic Web Pages and Cross-Browser Compatibility - Can It Be Done?

2002-06-19

This session is aimed at those who wish to enhance their Web pages with interactivity and animation using Dynamic HTML. Bringing together the technologies of cascading style sheets, client-side scripting and the Document Object Model (DOM), Dynamic HTML can be a powerful tool. However, it also has a reputation for browser dependency. This session will open with practical demonstrations of some of the problems inherent in creating cross-browser DHTML pages and will then attempt to present solutions to these. Particular focus will be made of a cross-browser DOM, enabling the common address of objects within a page. Attendees will be encouraged to contribute to the session by raising issues, problems and possible solutions that they may have encountered

B8: Exploiting Locally-Created E-resources: OAI and E-prints

2002-06-19

This session begins by describing moves in the world-wide academic community to develop Web access to scholarly publications, in particular the eprint archive initiative and the Open Archive Initiative (OAI). It then examines Strathclyde's practical and organisational experiences to date in setting up an institution-based eprint archive, StrathPrints, and managing the organisational issues that such an archive involves. These include copyright and IPR issues, relationships with existing services, and, crucially, the attitudes of academic staff to the prospect of submitting material to an eprint archive.

C1: Interoperability and Learning Standards Briefing

2002-06-20

Learning technology standards aim to provide answers to some of the problems faced by institutions who wish to manage and facilitate online learning and teaching activities. When learning content and user data are packaged and sequenced in a standardised format they can then be transferred more easily between platforms and environments. Standard ways of describing educational materials allows them to be searched for more easily by learners. There needs to be a consensus between developers of administrative systems, virtual learning environments and other online learning tools about what information to transfer and how to format it. The IMS Global Consortium Inc. (www.imsproject.org) and others are developing specifications to enable this vision of interoperability of systems to be achieved. This briefing session gives an overview of the work taking place and examines how successful they have been so far.

C2: Web Standards Briefing

2002-06-20

HTML, XHTML, XML, CSS, XLST, RDF, Schemas, etc. Are you finding it all too confusing? Do you find it difficult to keep up-to-date with the latest Web standards? This session will provide an update on Web standards. The talk will describe the initial Web architecture, review its limitations and then discuss a number of new Web standards and protocol developments. The talk will give a technical overview (of standards such as XML, XSLT, SVG and SMIL etc.), but will not go into any significant details of the standards. New acronyms will be explained, but it is expected that participants will have a number of the original Web architecture, such as HTML, URLs and HTTP.

C3: Web Sites and Legislation Briefing

2002-06-20

This briefing session will review legislation which affects the provision of Web services.

C4: Computer Scientists - A Help Or A Hindrance ;-)!

2002-06-20

This discussion group session will provide participants an opportunity to discuss the approaches taken by Computer Science departments. Are here lessons which can be learnt? Can computer scientists be of help to institutional Web managers - or are they more likely to be a hinderance? This session will be led by Duncan - a computer scientist himself!

C5: Departmental Freedom vs. Centralised Control

2002-06-20

Tired of departments making a mess of their web content? Sick of out of date, irrelevant information on your HEI web site? Wish someone would curb excesses and enforce a uniform style? OR Sick of management telling you what's best for your departmental Web site? Cramped by corporate branding? Underwhelmed by the latest brochureware? Vent your spleen at this groupwork session where you can put your case to your peers. Participants will discuss the pros and cons of web management styles at their respective institutions, whether devolved or centralised, and give examples of the types of systems and support services in place for web developers. Individuals in groups will attempt to define the model they would like to have employed within their institutions, and how this might best be achieved. Groups will report back and be asked to present arguments for and against centralisation, regardless of their beliefs.

C6: Advertising On Web Sites

2002-06-20

Many institutions are considering providing advertisements on their Web sites. But is this allowable under the rules governing use of the JANET network? Even if it is, is it desirable. On the one hand users may expect University Web sites to reflect their neutral stance and to be unencumbered by advertising. On the other hand, advertising can generate much needed revenues for institutions and, judging by the popularity of commercial Web sites such as Yahoo! and Amazon, users appear to be happy to make use of such Web sites. In this session participants will have the opportunity to discuss these issues and the requirements of an implementation policy.

C7: Vendor Presentations

2002-06-20

An innovation at this year's event is the Vendor Presentations session. This will provide participants with the opportunity to hear the latest news concerning software developments in areas of interest to institutional Web managers in the UK Higher and Further Educational community.