Self-Assessment Of JISC X4L Project Entry Points

This page provides access to a number of Web-based self-assessment checks in order to enable X4L projects to validate the entry point of their project Web site.

Self Assessment Of Project Web Site

Access to the self assessment checks is available below. These can be used to check the project entry point for X4L projects.

Note that the data for the X4L project entry points is taken from JISC's listing of X4L Development Projects. It is recognised that these entry points may not be the entry point for the project deliverables, but may be for a Web site which provides details about the project or a Web site for project partners.

Table 1: Access to self assessment tests for X4L project entry points

	Project	HTML Compliance [Note]	CSS Compliance [Note]	Accessibility [Note]	Link Check [Note]	404 Page [Note]	Comments
1	ACETS	[Home Page] - [Recursive]	[Home Page]	[Home Page]	[Home Page] - [Recursive]	[Check 404 page]
2	ALBEDA	[Home Page] - [Recursive]	[Home Page]	[Home Page]	[Home Page] - [Recursive]	[Check 404 page]
3	ARCHES	[Home Page] - [Recursive]	[Home Page]	[Home Page]	[Home Page] - [Recursive]	[Check 404 page]
4	Business English	[Home Page] - [Recursive]	[Home Page]	[Home Page]	[Home Page] - [Recursive]	[Check 404 page]
5	E-studio	[Home Page] - [Recursive]	[Home Page]	[Home Page]	[Home Page] - [Recursive]	[Check 404 page]
6	ELVIS						No Web site available
7	X4L SdiT	[Home Page] - [Recursive]	[Home Page]	[Home Page]	[Home Page] - [Recursive]	[Check 404 page]
8	Healthier Nation	[Home Page] - [Recursive]	[Home Page]	[Home Page]	[Home Page] - [Recursive]	[Check 404 page]	Lotus Web site with long URL
9	JORUM and the Development Bay	[Home Page] - [Recursive]	[Home Page]	[Home Page]	[Home Page] - [Recursive]	[Check 404 page]
10	LAWPATHS	[Home Page] - [Recursive]	[Home Page]	[Home Page]	[Home Page] - [Recursive]	[Check 404 page]
11	Learning Bank	[Home Page] - [Recursive]	[Home Page]	[Home Page]	[Home Page] - [Recursive]	[Check 404 page]
12	L2L: Learning to Learn	[Home Page] - [Recursive]	[Home Page]	[Home Page]	[Home Page] - [Recursive]	[Check 404 page]
13	Learning via Stars and Literature	[Home Page] - [Recursive]	[Home Page]	[Home Page]	[Home Page] - [Recursive]	[Check 404 page]
14	Maps and Learner Guides	[Home Page] - [Recursive]	[Home Page]	[Home Page]	[Home Page] - [Recursive]	[Check 404 page]
14	PILOT						No Web site available
15	RDN for FE	[Home Page] - [Recursive]	[Home Page]	[Home Page]	[Home Page] - [Recursive]	[Check 404 page]
16	Re-tasking traditionally structured resources						No Web site available
17	RELOAD	[Home Page] - [Recursive]	[Home Page]	[Home Page]	[Home Page] - [Recursive]	[Check 404 page]
18	SURF X4L	[Home Page] - [Recursive]	[Home Page]	[Home Page]	[Home Page] - [Recursive]	[Check 404 page]
19	TOIA	[Home Page] - [Recursive]	[Home Page]	[Home Page]	[Home Page] - [Recursive]	[Check 404 page]
20	VTSX4L	[Home Page] - [Recursive]	[Home Page]	[Home Page]	[Home Page] - [Recursive]	[Check 404 page]
21	X4L Lit	[Home Page] - [Recursive]	[Home Page]	[Home Page]	[Home Page] - [Recursive]	[Check 404 page]
22	X4L Rapid	[Home Page] - [Recursive]	[Home Page]	[Home Page]	[Home Page] - [Recursive]	[Check 404 page]
23	X4L West Midlands	[Home Page] - [Recursive]	[Home Page]	[Home Page]	[Home Page] - [Recursive]	[Check 404 page]
24	X4LMUSIC	[Home Page] - [Recursive]	[Home Page]	[Home Page]	[Home Page] - [Recursive]	[Check 404 page]

 

Comments

HTML Compliance

Web resources should comply with an open published HTML DTD. Note that common problems include omission of the DTD and omission of the character encoding. For further information see the briefing document on "Compliance with HTML Standards."

CSS Compliance

CSS used in Web resources should comply with a CSS standard. For further information see the briefing document on "Use Of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)."

Accessibility

Web resources should comply with appropriate Web accessibility guidelines. Note that the Bobby accessibility checking tool used here provides only limited checking for accessibility. For further information see the briefing document on "Use of Automated Tools For Testing Web Site Accessibility."

Link checking

You should seek to minimise the numbers of broken links on your project Web site. In particular you should avoid broken links to internal resources. Note that link checking tools should not be limited to checking coventional <A HREF="..."> links, but also links to external CSS files, JavaScript files, etc. For further information see the briefing document on "Approaches To Link Checking."
You should also note that in addition to link checking tools sometimes missing broken links, you may sometimes find that link checking tools also sometimes report problems with links when this isn't the case. In particular at the time of writing (September 2003) due to configuration problems with the JISC Web site hosting agency, links to the JISC Web are reported as borken even if the resources actually exist.

404 Pages

Ideally your project Web site will make use of a rich 404 error page. For further information see the briefing document on "404 Error Pages On Web Sites."

Checking Additional Resources

HTML Compliance

You may wish to use the HTML compliance testing service yourself for checking other resources on your project Web site. You can do this either by going to the HTML Validator or by entering a URL in the following box:

The recursive HTML compliance testing service makes use of the Web Design Group HTML compliance checking tool. The recursive validator will check up to 100 pages on a Web site.

You can use the service yourself by going to the Web Design Group Validator or by using the following box.

CSS Compliance

You may wish to use the HTML compliance testing service yourself for checking other resources on your project Web site. You can do this either by going to the W3C CSS compliance checking tool or by entering a URL in the following box:

Link Checking

You may wish to use the link checking service yourself for checking other resources on your project Web site. You can do this either by going to the W3C link checking tool or by entering a URL in the following box:

The following box can be used to check multiple pages:

 

QA Procedures

If you spot any errors using the self assessment tools described above you should seek not only to fix the errors but also to implement appropriate quality assurance procedures to ensure that you have appropriate procedures for systematically checking for errors and minimising errors.

Changes

The following changes have been made:

15 Sept 2003

Added following Web sites:

• Added the URL for L2L: Learning to Learn Web site at <http://www.stir.ac.uk/daice/l2l/>
• Added the URL for X4L SdiT Web site at <http://x4l.data-archive.ac.uk/>

 

Note

Please note that this page does not comply with XHTML. This is due to the repetion of the name of a form variable. This has to be done in order that multiple forms provided by a third party can be embedded on this page.