WWW 7 Trip Report

WWW 7 Trip Report

Brian KellyEmail Address

UK Web Focus B.Kelly@ukoln.ac.uk

UKOLN

University of Bath

http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/

UKOLN is funded by the British Library Research and Innovation Centre,the Joint Information Systems Committee of the Higher Education FundingCouncils, as well as by project funding from the JISC’s Electronic LibrariesProgramme and the European Union. UKOLN also receives support fromthe University of Bath where it is based.

Contents

•Introduction

•Tim Berners-Lee's Keynote talk

•W3C Tracks at WWW 7 Conference

•Developer's Day

•Keynote on Java

•Papers

•Search engines• Metadata

•Characterisation• Markup

•Question

See<URL: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/> for trip report,these slides, etc.

About the Conference

WWW 7 Conference:

•Held in Brisbane, Australia from 14-18April 1998

•About 1,400 participants

•Exciting new technology - RDF

•See <URL: http://www7.conf.au/>

•Conference papers online for short period

Evolvability (1)

Tim Berners-Lee's opening keynote talk talkedabout "evolvability" of the web:

•Evolution of markup languages and data

•Goal: version 1 software partially understandsversion 2 data.

•Based on "we will be smarter in the future"

•Goal: version A software partially understandsversion B data.

•Based on "Others will be smarter than us"

•Use web as the registry (decentralised evolution)

Evolvability (2)

RDF (Resource Description Framework ):

•See a document as a combination of logicalassertions

•Draw conclusions by combining many documents

Global reasoning engines, based on RDF couldbe "devastating"

"Is there a green car for sale for around $15,000 inQueensland?"

"Get involved in RDF, XML, Schemas"

"Design for evolvability"

See <URL: http://www.w3.org/Talks/1998/0415-Evolvability/slide1-1.htm>

W3C Tracks

W3C (World Wide Web Consortium):

•Gives update on W3C activities in the W3CTrack at WWW Conferences

•Covers:

–User Interface Domain

–Architecture Domain

–Technology and Society Domain

•Talks available at<URL: http://www.w3.org/Conferences/WWW7/W3CTrack.html>

W3C - HTML Futures

HTML Futures:

•Talk given by Dave Raggett

•HTML 4.0 now complete. Need to look at HTMLfutures.

•Workshop in US in May. See details, includingposition papers at <URL:http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/future/>

•See Dave's slides at <URL:http://www.w3.org/Talks/1998/0416-WWW7-HTML/>

W3C - HTML Futures (2)

Mobile Computers

•Importance of mobile computers (PDAs, phones,car computers, etc.)NOTE Dearing report

•Relationship with accessibility issues

•Challenges:

–Small screens– Long round trip times

–Limited processing power / memory

•Solutions:

–Abbreviations for headings

–Use of styles (rather than, e.g., tables)

–Expanding and collapsing outlines

–Aural and visual media (headings spoken, read body)

–HTML 4.0 and CSS 2.0

W3C - Maths

MML:

•Math(s) Markup Language

•An XML Application

•W3C Recommendationagreed on 7 April 1998

•Java and ActiveX renderers

•Dave Raggett has writtenan authoring tool(Windows 95)

•See <URL: http://www.w3.org/Math/>

$W:\content\www.ukoln.ac.uk\web-focus\events\seminars\umi-may1998\mml.gif$

$I:\public_html\web-focus\ariadne\web-focus-10\mml.gif$

W3C - Architecture

Architecture Domain:

•Promote coherent Web architecture

•Automate information management - If a decisioncan be made by machine, it should

Working on:

•HTTP/1.1 and HTTP/NG

•Jigsaw server (in Java, freely available)

•XML

•SMIL

See <URL: http://www.w3.org/Talks/1998/04/WWW7-Arch/>

W3C - XML

XML:

•Extensible Markup Language

•Addresses HTML's lack of evolvability

•XML 1.0 Recommendation in Feb 1998

•Note well-formedness:

Make end-tags explicit: <LI>...</LI>

Make empty elements explicit: <IMG .../>

Quote attributes <IMG SRC="logo" HEIGHT="20"..

Use consistent upper/lower case

•and valid:

Need DTD

W3C - XML

•Extensible:

•Multiple names spaces:

<?xml:namespace ns="http://foo.org/1998-001" prefix="i">

<P>Insert <i:PART>M-471</i:PART></P>

•Sharing document structures:

–It's hard

–It's necessary

–It's worth it

See <URL: http://www.w3.org/Talks/1998/04/WWW7-XML/>

XML - Further Information

Ariadne issue 14 includesarticle on "What Is XML?"

Describes how XML supportcan be provided:

•Natively by new browsers

•Back end conversionof XML - HTML

•Client-side conversionof XML - HTML

•Java rendering of XML

Examples of intermediaries

$I:\public_html\web-focus\ariadne\web-focus-10\mozilla.gif$

$I:\public_html\web-focus\ariadne\web-focus-10\xml1.gif$

See http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue15/what-is/

W3C - HTTP

HTTP/0.9 and HTTP/1.0:

Made the Web popular

Design flaws and implementation problemscaused poor performance

HTTP/1.1:

Addresses some of these problems

Performance benefits!

Is acting as fire-fighter

Poor usage counting

Not sufficiently flexible or extensible

W3C - HTTP/NG

HTTP/NG:

•Based on convergence of Internet protocols

•Two W3C Working Groups:

Protocol Design:Redesign Web as distributed object application

Web Characterisations:Study Web usage and form requirements

New log format for easier collection andanonymisation

•See <URL: http://www.w3.org/Talks/1998/04/WWW7-HTTP-NG/>

W3C - WAI

WAI (Web Accessibility Initiative):

•Ensures web specs address accessibility issues

Authoring:

•First draft of Page Author Accessibility Checklistand Guidelines available at<URL: http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/WD-WAI-PAGEAUTH-0203>

Software

•User agent / Authoring tools guidelines beingproduced

See <URL: http://www.w3.org/Talks/1998/04/WWW7-WAI/>

W3C - Technology and Society

Domain activities cover:

•PICS

•Digital Signature Initiative

•Privacy (P3P)

•Metadata (RDF)

•Security Interest Group

•Public Policy Interest Group

•Electronic Commerce Interest Group

See <URL: http://www.w3.org/Talks/1998/04/WWW7TandS/>

W3C - Privacy

P3P (Platform for Privacy Preferences):

•Privacy concerns are a current barrier to Webdevelopment (Note Tim Berners-Lee's interviewin Australian press)

•P3P project developing methods for exchangingPrivacy Practices of Web sites and user

•Documents on architecture and vocabularyavailable

•P3P1.0 draft spec released on 19 May 1998

•See <URL: http://www.w3.org/P3P/>

W3C - RDF

RDF (Resource Description Framework):

•Highlight of WWW 7

•Provides a metadata framework ("machineunderstandable metadata for the web")

•Based on ideas from content rating (PICS),resource discovery (Dublin Core) and sitemapping (MCF)

•Applications include:

–cataloging resources– resource discovery

–electronic commerce– intelligent agents

–digital signatures– content rating

–intellectual property rights– privacy

•See <URL: http://www.w3.org/Talks/1998/0417-WWW7-RDF>

W3C - RDF

RDF:

•Based on a formaldata model (directlabel graphs)

•Syntax forinterchange of data

•Schema model

Resource

Value

PropertyType

Property

page.html

£0.05

Cost

11-May-98

ValidUntil

RDF Data Model

page.html

£0.05

11-May-98

Property

Cost

InstanceOf

ValidUntil

Value

PropObj

Cost

PropName

W3C - RDF Example

Example of Dublin Core metadata in RDF

<?xml:namespace ns="http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-rdf/" prefix="rdf"?>

<?xml:namespace ns="http://purl.org/dublin_core/schema/" prefix="dc"?>

<rdf:RDF>

<rdf:Description RDF:HREF="page.html">

<dc:Creator>John Smith</dc:Creator>

<dc:Title>John’s Home Page</dc:Title>

</rdf:Description>

</rdf:RDF>

Browser Support for RDF

Mozilla (Netscape'ssource code release)provides support forRDF.

Mozilla supports sitemaps in RDF, as wellas bookmarks andhistory lists

See Netscape's orHotWired home pagefor a link to the RDFfile.

$W:\content\www.ukoln.ac.uk\web-focus\events\seminars\what-is-rdf-may1998\mozilla1.gif$

$C:\TEMP\mozilla$

Trusted3rdPartyMetadata

Embedded

Metadatae.g.sitemaps

Image from http://purl.oclc.org/net/eric/talks/www7/devday/

W3C - RDF Conclusion

RDF is a general-purpose framework

RDF provides structured, machine-understandable metadata for the Web

Metadata vocabularies can bedeveloped without central coordination

RDF Schemas describe the meaning ofeach property name

Signed RDF is the basis for trust

Developer's Day - XML

"So You Want To Be An XML Developer"

Talk by Tim Bray, Textuality

See <URL: http://www.textuality.com/WWW7/>

Useful resources:

Annotated Spec at <URL:http://www.xml.com/axmls/axml.html>

XML FAQ at <URL: http://www.ucc.ie/xml>

Other pages at <URL: http://www.sil.org/sgml/xml.html>

Developer's Day - XLink

XLink

•Aims to provide sophisticated hyperlinkingfunctionality missing in HTML

•Formerly known as XML-LINK and XLL

•See <URL:http://sil.org/sgml/xll.html>

•XLink working draft is stable, though newversions due out

Developer's Day - XLink

XLink provides:

•Links that lead to multiple destinations

•Bidirectional links

•Links with special behaviors:

–Expand-in-place (similar to <IMG SRC>)

–Replace (similar to <A HREF>)

–Create new window

–Link on load (similar to <IMG SRC> or redirect)

–Link on user action

•Link databases

England

France

</commentary>

</commentary>

Developer's Day - XPointer

XPointer:

•Based on TEI work

•XPointer specifies location in XML tree structure

•For example:

ID(foo).CHILD(4,SEC).CHILD(1,ABSTRACT)

addresses the first XML ABSTRACT elementwithin the fourth SEC element within the elementwith ID attribute "foo" in a document

•To use:

•Note the working draft is not stable

•Interesting IPR implications?

Random Thoughts on SoftwareDevelopment for the Web

Keynote talk by James Gosling:

•Positive about Java futures

•"This is the year the performance problemdisappears." JIT compiler performance is close toC. Betters JVMs available (e.g. HotSpot).

•Java ports to PDAs, phones, smart cards, …

Q.How serious are browser incompatibility problems?

A. Netscape made serious error at one point. There arealso bugs in IE. Java Plugin (was Activator) mayenable a functioning JVM to be installed (notesupports <OBJECT> tag).See http://www.javasoft.com/products/plugin/

Research Papers

218 papers submitted.

54 papers, 43 short papers, 13 posters, 5 doctoralconsortium papers and 6 panel abstracts published

Brief comments on papers of interest to web softwaredevelopers and information providers.

General themes:

•Java was widely used to implement ideas

•Several papers on analysis of link structures toimprove searching

•"Intermediaries" seem to be an interestingconcept

See <URL: http://www7.conf.au/programme/fullprog.html>

Metadata Systems

Three papers.

Specifying Metadata Standards for Metadata ToolConfiguration by Andrew Waugh, CSIRO, Australia

Excellent paper showing how the expense of producingmetadata requires a generic metadata editor

The Limits of Web Metadata and Beyond by MassimoMarchiori, MIT, USA

This paper describes how fuzzy techniques can be used toautomatically generate metadata for existing resources

Structure Graph Format: XML Metadata forDescribing Web Site Structure by Liechto et al

Producing site maps based on linking and directory structures

Markup

An Extensible Rendering Engine for XML and HTMLby Ciancarini et al, Bologna University

Describes how Java can be used to provide browsersupport for new HTML / XML tags

<PARAM NAME="def" VALUE = "

</TAG> "> ...

<P>Text is displayed as<REVERSE>white text on black</REVERSE>

See http://www.cs.unibo.it/~fabio/displet/

Example of an intermediary

$I:\public_html\web-focus\ariadne\web-focus-10\displets.gif$

Search and Indexing Techniques

The Anatomy of a LargeScale Hypertextual WebSearch Engine Brin & Page,Stanford Univ

•Describes Google, a large-scale search enginedeveloped for researchpurposes

•Uses link information

•Use of service andfeedback is encouraged

$W:\content\www.ukoln.ac.uk\web-focus\events\seminars\umi-may1998\google.gif$

http://google.stanford.edu/

Characterisation

Summary of Web Characterisation by Pitkow

An excellent review of web characterisation studies,including:

–Client studies

–Proxies and gateways

–Server

–Websites

Some conclusions:

No. of page requests per siteMode of 1!

Site popularity25% of servers 85%traffic

Document life spanAbout 50 days

Web Management

One paper, in Hypertext and Hypermedia session,on web management

WSDM: A User Centred Design Method ForWeb Sites by De Troyer et al

This paper proposes a design methodology forweb-kiosks.

The paper gives references on methodologiesfor website design.

Observations

The following comments are made:

•There were several papers on how linkinformation (e.g. "who is pointing to this page?")can be used to improve searching (e.g. Google)and user navigation (e.g. SGMapper).

•The possible importance of intermediaries fordeploying new technologies to current browsers:

–In proxies (e.g. WBI)

–In Java (e.g. displets, MML support)

–In JavaScript (e.g. XML -> HTML / CSS)

Conclusions

•WWW 8 to be held at Toronto in May 1999

•WWW 9 to be held in Amsterdam in 2000

•Call for papers for WWW 8 shortly

•Closing date December 1998

•For information on WWW protocoldevelopments seeuk-web-focus-w3c@mailbase.ac.uk list