HTML5: Request for Proposals For Case Studies

The Importance of HTML5 (and Friends)

One area of technology which will be of interest to participants at the IWMW 2011 event will be HTML5 and the related Open Web Platform portfolio of W3C standards which can help to provide richer functionality with enhanced user interfaces.  A plenary talk on “HTML5 (and friends)” given by Patrick Lauke at IWMW 2010 helped to generate interest in HTML5′s potential for use to support institutional Web services in a range of areas. But in the year since then how has the sector gone about using HTML5, CSS, AJAX and related technologies?  Are we seeing significant benefits and if so, in which areas?  What approaches are being taken to deploying HTML5 – in-house development work, use of HTML5 from existing content management systems, application development environments, VLEs, etc.?

Request for Proposals For Case Studies

In order to find answers to these questions the JISC is funding case studies on use of HTML5 and related standards in areas of relevance to the higher/further education sector. UKOLN, which is managing this work, has announced a Request for Proposals (RfP) For HTML5 Case Studies and a summary is given below.

The proposals for HTML5 case studies and demonstrators should describe best practices and scenarios for making use of HTML5 and related Open Web Platform standards in areas of relevance to those working in the higher and further education sectors.

The proposals should address new features of the emerging HTML5 standard (e.g. canvas; geo-location; local storage; video; form fill; etc.) or related standards which form part of the W3C’s Open Web Platform such as the CSS, DOM, MathML, etc.

Application areas might include, but are not restricted to, benefits to institutional Web site (e.g. SEO benefits or enriched functionality); teaching and learning applications (course lectures delivered via video, audio, etc.; lab notebooks); research applications (e.g. articles, series, journals; books; table of contents; bibliography; citation); multi-channel access; etc.

The proposals should describe how the work was implemented and the ways in which the new functionality was (or could be) implemented in a real-world context of legacy browsers; possible lack of development tools; etc.

Case studies must be made available under a Creative Commons licence and if accompanying code is provided this should be made available under an appropriate Open Source licence.

A sum of £5,000 is available for each accepted submission. The deadline for submissions is Monday 18 July 2011. Accepted proposals must agree to provide final case studies by 16 September 2011.

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Ten Reasons Why You Should Attend IWMW 2011

In light of the funding difficulties which we are facing in higher education we decided to reduce the IWMW 2011 event to a 2-day format, with a corresponding reduction in the fee to £200 or £250 including one night’s accommodation. We are aware that a number of Web teams have had their training budget capped and so are unable to attend this year’s event.  Despite such difficulties there are now 145 bookings for the event so we are very close to our target of 150 participants – and since the bookings are open for the remainder of the week we expect to reach this target. However if you need to be convinced of the benefits to be gained from attending the event – or, perhaps more realistically, you need to convince your manager, here are some arguments you may wish to use:

  • The event is a bargain at £200 (or £250 including accommodation): There are other great conferences for those working in the delivery of large-scale Web services but they are likely to cost significantly more:  such as this one-day event costing £225+VAT or this two-day conference which costs £595 (plus VAT and no accommodation).
  • The programme is designed for those working in higher/further education: Many of the speakers and facilitators work in higher education or work for companies which specialise in supporting the sector.
  • You can get “tens of thousands of pounds worth of free consultancy“!: Martin Hamilton, head of Internet Services at Loughborough University, described in a video interview how at the IWMW 2010 event he had “gotten tens of thousands of pounds worth of free consultancy” from the various discussions he had attended during his 3 days at the first IWMW event he had attended! On his blog he subsequently described how “The highlight of IWMW10 for me was that I became aware of an open source product that will save my institution around £50K over a three year timeframe. In my view this alone amply justifies the £350 conference registration fee.
  • You’ll hear about SEO strategies for a University context: In a keynote talk Professor Melius Weideman, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, South Africa will provide empirical research results from analysis of UK university Web sites which will indicate where improvements can be made to increase the visibility of UK HE Web sites to search engines.
  • You’ll have an ideal opportunity to cultivate professional network: The growing importance of social networks to support professional activities is becoming more widely acknowledged. However, despite the potential benefits of services such as Twitter and LinkedIn, the value of face-to-face meetings provided by events such as IWMW should not be under-estimated.
  • You’ll have an opportunity to engage and not just sit back and listen: In higher education we are well aware of the value of active learning. The IWMW has always provided opportunities for participants to actively engage in discussions , especially in the 90 minute workshop sessions.
  • You can attend accompanying DevCSI workshop on Open Data and the Institutional Web: This free DevCSI workshop begins on the day before IWMW 2011 and will provide an opportunity for developers and those who wish to engage in or commission development work related to access to, use and reuse of institutional data to share ideas, hear case studies and engage in lightweight development activities.
  • You can engage with marketing and techie communities: Some Web events tend to be very focussed on marketing perspectives whilst at other events techies may dominate and talk in a strange language of TLAs (and even XTLAs).  At IWMW 2011 Amber Thomas will give a plenary talk on “Marketing and Other Dirty Words” in which she will “bring together key messages from marketing, social media around content, usage tracking and strategy, with ideas for how we can present our intellectual assets online to get maximum effect”.
  • You can hear a plenary talk about how an institution has gone about embedding Web 2.0: As described in a post on the IWMW 2011 blog Martin Hamilton will share the experiences gained at Loughborough University.
  • You can also hear about and discuss legal issues and the Web: One of the 90 minute parallel workshop session will address Your Top Ten Legal Issues To Be Thinking About Now.  Since every University will this year have to be considering how to respond to the new cookie legislation, this will be of interest to many.

Can you afford not to attend?

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IWMW Scoop.it

There is now an IWMW Scoop.it topic. Scoop.it is a fairly new site that “allows you to be the curator of your favorite topic“. You do this by creating a topic-centric media by adding relevant RSS streams.

Brian Kelly has recently more on the implications of using scoop.it in his post Potential for Scoop.it at Events.

At the moment the IWMW page currently contains content published by event organisers, primarily from this blog. We are hoping the Scoop.it page will become more interesting as more varied content is published about the event (ideally with the #iwmw11 event hashtag so that such content can be easily discovered) by those intending to attend the event or have an interest in the topics which will be addressed at the workshop.

We intend to update the IWMW 2011 Scoop.it page on a weekly basis over the next few weeks and then see if we can update it more frequently during the event itself.

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Extension of Bookings and Day Tickets!

On Friday we announced that a DevCSI workshop on Open Data and the Institutional Web will take place on the day before IWMW 2011.

This will allow those involved in institutional Web management activities who have a particular interest in open data to participate in the workshop. The workshop will continue on the opening morning of the IWMW 2011 event. DevCSI participants will have the opportunity to continue their development activities whilst those who have signed up for IWMW 2011 can attend the opening two plenary talks.

Note that since there are only 30 places available for the DevCSI workshop you should book your place soon.

In light of this late announcement, we will be keeping bookings for the IWMW 2011 event open until Friday 8th July, and we have decided to provide day tickets for those who are unable to attend the full 2-day event.

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DevCSI Workshop on Open Data and the Institutional Web

Beginning Monday 25th July, the day before the Institutional Web Management Workshop 2011 starts, DevCSI will be running a free event for developers looking at hacking content, systems and services for institutional/open data. Lunch, refreshments and accommodation will be provided.

The event is aimed at developers, web developers, information specilists, data managers and policy makers working in Further or Higher Education who are interested in the provision of open data to support a variety of institutional activities.

The event, which takes place from 10am on Monday till 12:30 on Tuesday, includes presentations which outline various examples of use of open data. Time has also been allocated for a number of lightning sessions where delegates can talk about projects, technologies or issues that they think other attendees will find interesting.

In addition to the talks there will be opportunity for participants to
suggest ideas for open development activities which could be developed during the day. Results from the event will be presented at the Institutional Web Management Workshop 2011.

The event is being organised by the DevCSI project and staff from the
University of Southampton.

DevCSI is about helping software developers realise their full potential, by creating the conditions for them to be able to learn, network effectively, share ideas, collaborate and innovate creating a ‘community’ of developers in the learning provider sector which is greater than the sum of its parts.

There will be opportunities for attendees of this event to proceed on to the Institutional Web Management Workshop.

See the Open Data and the Institutional Web event page for more information.

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Embedding Web 2.0

I’ll be talking at IWMW 2011 about institutional attitudes to “Web 2.0″, i.e. social media, blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Google+ etc.

As I’ve written before (about the iPad), the key question is: Are you progressive, or regressive?

At Loughborough we are trying to take a progressive approach to Web 2.0 – taking in the feedback from an earlier crowdsourcing exercise.

Come along to my session at IWMW 2011 (or read on :-) for more…

Continue reading

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Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

There have been a few changes to sessions originally advertised.

Piero Tintori can no longer attend this year’s evebt so his sessions A4: Website personalisation for more effective student recruitment and engagement and B3: Building a low cost mobile Web presence will no longer run.

In their place will be the following sessions:

  • A4: The Web Management Community: Beyond IWMW and JISCMail Lists facilitated by Brian Kelly, UKOLN  – This session will provide participants with an opportunity to reevaluate the various communications and collaboration channels which can help to support those working in the sector and to identify emerging patterns of usage and best practices.
  • B3: The Economical way to Amplify Your Event facilitated by Brian Kelly and Marieke Guy  – The session will encourage interaction and attendees will be invited to share experiences and tips on amplifying events. It is also hoped that the session will be live streamed and delegates will be able to experiment with some of the possible tools.

The parallel session A2: Working against the silo: the practical things we learnt about multi-surfacing will still be facilitated by Stephen Pope but with Jon Reay from Aqueduct as his co-facilitator, rather than Mike Ellis.

The parallel session A3: Enhancing your institutional web site with interactive mapping is likely to be facilitated by Addy Pope from GoGeo rather than Anne Robertson.

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Goin’ Mobile

Can you remember when mobiles were all about making phone calls? These days mobiles can do it all…

Consideration for the mobile Web is becoming an increasingly important area for HE and FE institutions and we’d be fools to ignore it at this year’s IWMW.

At previous IWMW events the topic has been introduced (e.g. 2009′s The Mobile Web: keep up if you can! facilitated by Sharon Steeples, University of Essex and 2010′s Mobile Apps vs Mobile Web originally written by Anthony Doherty but presented by Mike Nolan, Edge Hill University and Mark Power, CETIS) and institutions have showcased their applications and approaches (e.g. 2010′s plenary on Mobile Web and Campus Assistant given by Damian Steer from ILRT, University of Bristol and Stylesheets for mobile/smartphones facilitated by Helen Sargan, University of Cambridge.)

It now seems that institutions are after much more specific advice.

Mark Power’s recent briefing paper Mobile Web Apps is a good example of the useful guidance now needed.

With the growth and constant shift in the mobile space institutions could be forgiven for feeling a little lost as to how to best tackle the issue of delivering content and/or services that are optimised for mobile devices. Apple, Android, Blackberry, Windows Phone…app ecosystems seemingly everywhere you turn and each requiring different development approaches; SDKs, programming languages, approval processes and terms & conditions. I think it’s fair to say that for institutions, looking to deliver to mobile devices while being as inclusive as possible, this area is something of a minefield.

Brian Kelly has written a recent blog post on Institutional Strategies for the Mobile Web which highlights a survey on Institutional Use of the Mobile Web being carried out by UKOLN and CETIS, the JISC-funded Innovation Support Centres.

This year IWMW offers two parallel workshops that will aid institutional web managers in making the right choices for their university.

In Accessibility, Inclusiveness and the Mobile Web Richard Prowse and Sharon Steeples will look at issues around open and proprietary standards in the mobile arena. They will make suggestions about sensible approaches that will ensure that Web managers do not get hit in the browser battles.

In Augmented Reality on Smart Phones Ben Butchart from Edina, based at the University of Edinburgh, will share many of the lessons learnt when writing his AR report for the JISC Observatory. Ben explains that thanks to advances in smartphone technology, augmented reality has escaped from the lab and is able to reach a wide audience for the first time. A new class of AR “browsers” and tools for authoring and hosting content makes it possible for almost anyone to create augmented reality learning experiences. As an emerging technology, the industry lacks standards and the landscape is constantly changing. His session will help developers and content publishers navigate this confusing landscape and experiment with AR for the first time.

In Ben’s session delegates will compare the set of AR browsers targeting smartphones and look at tools for helping content providers to publish their material. We’ll also discuss the limitations and potential pitfalls associated with this nascent medium. Both technical and social issues with current smartphone AR offerings could lead to disillusionment once the initial “wow” factor fades. Delegates will look at the user experience patterns and the issues for social interaction they can cause. As well as Ben talking, there will be discussions and some practical demonstrations are planned.

Alongside the mobile Web sessions there are likely to be even more ways you can learn about what your mobile can do for you. Look out for some games and surveys that will show you that it’s more than just a hand warmer!

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Still Searching

Search Engine Marketing by Danard Vincente

Voice search for the desktop, Google Instant Pages, faster searching, image searching, personalised searches…searching on the Web has refused to sit still.

This year IWMW has two plenary talks exploring institutional Web sites and their relationship with search engines.

In Search Engines in the fight against Institutional Impecuniousness David Hawking, Chief Scientist at the internet and enterprise search company Funnelback, takes a look at how effective publishing and effective search can help institutions fight substantial reductions in financial means.

David explains how efficiency gains can come from reducing the load of student enquiries — relating to timetables, exams, courses, degree rules, lecture notes and study materials, accommodation, building locations and accessing services. They can also come from improving the productivity of research, teaching and support staff — locating policies, accessing services, contacting other staff, locating expertise, preparing grant applications and ethics approvals, providing research and statistical returns to the government, preparing lectures and course materials, and assessing assignments.

Income depends upon success in recruitment of students, both domestic and international. An institution’s student income can be increased by more effectively communicating the courses it has on offer, the accommodation which it provides and the selling points of the institution itself. Income also comes from grants, research outputs, higher degree completions, alumnus donations, bequests, and industry partnerships. Research income is highly dependent on effective recruitment of quality staff and research students. All this depends heavily upon the ability of the institution to publish information about itself and to increase the likelihood that target audiences will find that information.

His talk will look at the range of ways in which search and publication technologies can assist. He will also present case studies that demonstrate this approach.

Last year Melius Weideman, Professor at Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT), attended IWMW as a delegate and was very keen to come back and present on his area of interest: the “What” and “Why” of Search Engine Optimisation. It’s great to have an international speaker along!

Melius talk on UK University Website Visibility – responding to the quirks of the crawler uses empirical research results to highlight the important website visibility issues. He will share a comparative study on some UK university websites to indicate where improvements can be made to increase their visibility to crawlers. In a fairly practical plenary Melius will help delegates to identify and rank both positive and negative website visibility elements, to do a brief evaluation of a university website’s visibility and to be able to suggest improvements to a website in terms of increasing its visibility.

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B5: Open data; a little goes a long Way

This year’s parallel is a follow up to the one I (Chris Gutteridge) gave last year entitled Looking at Linked Data.

In March 2011, the University of Southampton launched the data.southampton.ac.uk service with some core datasets from the university.

So has it been a success?

Recently I got asked what the success criteria for the Open Data project was. This is very difficult to define but for me it will be when the open-data-service is so much part of business-as-usual that people on longer want an enthusiastic hacker running it! I’m looking forward to talking about the good ‘ole days when open data was a new frontier and nobody even had an ontology for coffee types or bus timetables yet.

The Open Data is starting to get put to use to:

  • People are using the bus times pages (I need to make the interface better, I know!)
  • Our upcoming campus mobile phone app will use some of the location data
  • I’ve been asked how the service could aid with student induction– eg. help people find what’s available, and where it is.

The other thing ticking along is getting live hookups to databases. Right now it’s all done with one-off dumps, we want to be showing the living data. The dump-and-email approach is fine for getting started but now it’s time to do the far less glamorous job of making the back-end more automated. I’m still working on getting energy use data per building, and I’ve a lead on recycling data!

If you want to find out more about some of the techniques used including dealing with the owners of the data then come along to my session. I’ll then show some of the resulting services.

I blog at http://blogs.ecs.soton.ac.uk/webteam/ and http://blogs.ecs.soton.ac.uk/data/

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