a centre of expertise in digital information management mashed library “oop north” 2009:...

A centre of expertise in digital information management

www.ukoln.ac.uk

Mashed Library “Oop North” 2009:

Enthusiastic Amateurs and Overcoming Institutional InertiaBrian KellyUKOLNUniversity of BathBath, UK

UKOLN is supported by:This work is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 licence (but note caveat)

Acceptable Use PolicyRecording of this talk, taking photos, discussing the content using email, instant messaging, blogs, SMS, etc. is permitted providing distractions to others is minimised.

Acceptable Use PolicyRecording of this talk, taking photos, discussing the content using email, instant messaging, blogs, SMS, etc. is permitted providing distractions to others is minimised.

Resources bookmarked using ‘mashlib09' tag Resources bookmarked using ‘mashlib09' tag

http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/mashed-library-2009/http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/mashed-library-2009/

Email:[email protected]

Twitter:http://twitter.com/briankelly/

Blog:http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/


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About Me

Brian Kelly:• National Web adviser to UK Universities

and cultural heritage organisations• Based at UKOLN, a national centre of

expertise in digital information management and located at the University of Bath

• Involved in Web since January 1993• Current area of interest include Web 2.0,

Web standards and Web accessibility• Not a developer (though used to write

Algol, Fortran, Basic and Cobol!)

Introduction


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Mashups Are Exciting!

Innovation Competition at IWMW 2008 attracted several good examples of mashups, including several from Mike Ellis


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Thumbnails of UK HEI Web pages, generated automatically using Thumbalizr

(Note I did this manually in early days of Web)


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Mashups Are Exciting!Google Custom Search Engine (GCSE) of UK University sites“Why? I dunno either?”

Joke at my Scottish HEI GCSE page Note JISC proposal for this in late 1990s


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Mashups Are Exciting!Google Earth view of UK UniversitiesWhy?


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Tony Hirst’s submission to IWMW 2008 innovation competition

Note:• Mashup (using

RSS, Yahoo Pipes, & Dipity)

• Documentation on blogDisplay of effectiveness of media

releases (how they are picked up by news & in blogosphere)

Display of effectiveness of media releases (how they are picked up by news & in blogosphere)


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Documenting The Mashups

Tony Hirst’s blog post about his IWMW 2008 submission includes documentation of what he did and screen shots of tools used


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Bring Down The Government!

Tony Hirst has written (& documented) multiple mashup examples making use of public sector data (e.g. Guardian APIs):

• Formula 1 data• MPs expenses• …

Note interview in journalism.co.uk


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What About You?

Some questions:• Will your mashup expertise thrive after

today?• What should be different after today?• What barriers do you envisage?• Will you be able to demonstrate value for

attending ‘Mash Oop North’? (cf evidence for MP’s expenses!)

D


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Advocacy

Your convinced (to some extent) of:• The value of data reuse• The benefits of light-weigh development• …

You can:• Promote this to senior managers• Encourage these approaches by your

developers• …

What else?What else?


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Encouraging Greater Openness

You’re convinced (to some extent) of allowing others to access your data & reuse of other’s data

You can:• Minimise legal barriers to reuse of your

data (e.g. CC0 & PDDL licences)• Use reusable formats (e.g. XML, not PDF)• Encourage a risk management attitude for

your developers e.g. Oppenheim formula:R=AxBxCxD



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Providing DocumentationYou’ve a great mashup service – but developer leaves (dies):

• “Did he say anything about the source code?

• “Anyone know if there’s any documentation”

How about encouraging open documentation e.g. using a blog (open to peer review)


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Sharing Experiences

Some additional thoughts:• Sharing experiences• Allowing and permitting• Engaging with others (peers, users, policy

makers, …)• Driving down costs (e.g. negotiations with

vendors)



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Critical Friends

Remember, though, that developers may get it wrong!Acting as a Critical Friend may be helpful


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Questions?

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