Institutional Web Management Workshop 2006:
Quality Matters
Risk Assessment For The IWMW 2006 Web Site

Risk Assessment For The IWMW 2006 Web Site

The Institutional Web Management Workshop 2006 Web site makes use of a number of services provided by external bodies. This page summarises the risk assessment approach taken to use of the services.

Rational For Use Of The Technologies

UKOLN is providing a variety of externally-hosted services on its IWMW 2006 Web site for a number of reasons:

Support UKOLN's Role

An important role of UKOLN is to key abreast of emerging new technologies and technological areas in order to provide advice on best practices to its stakeholder communities.

Advise Our Communities

Many institutions have an interest in Web 2.0, including technologies which provide social networking services and integration of content for diverse sources. Making use of such technologies allows to provide more effective advice, based on our experiences.

Provide Richer Experiences To Our Users

The hosted services aim to provide useful services to the target audience - participants at the Institutional Web Management Workshop 2006.

Minimise Resource Efforts

In order to minimise scarce software development expertise, we are making use of services which are freely available. This approach helps to avoid reinvention of the wheel.

Provide A Test Bed

We will seek to host appropriate services after the workshop in order to monitor changes to the services, such as withdrawal of or changes to the licence conditions, enhancements to the services, etc.

Gain Experience Prior To Service Deployment

Evaluation of the services and the feedback received from IWMW 2006 delegates will provide valuable feedback on the merits of the services. This feedback will be valuable if we decide to deploy any of the services in a wider context.

Maximising Impact

If any of the technologies proves to be regarded as particularly important, the demonstration at IWMW 2006 can provide an opportunity to maximise the impact, by exposure to over 170 delegates from over 100 institutions.

"Eating Our Own Dog Food"

As UKOLN is active in supporting and advising on the development of innovative new networked services, we should be seem to be making use of innovative services ourselves.

In order to satisfy the aims listed above, whilst minimising possible risks we have developed a risk assessment and risk management approach which is summarised below.

Risk Assessment Summary

Chatbot

A 'chatbot' (a speaking avatar) is available [1]. This is hosted by an external company. However the company are providing the service for free, in exchange for greater exposure of their service. The lack of guaranteed long term access to the Chatbot is flagged on the page.

del.icio.us

A number of del.icio.us tags (e.g. iwmw2006) are recommended for bookmarking resources related to the workshop and to individual talks and sessions [2]. There is a reliance on ongoing access to the relevant del.icio.us page [3]. There is also a possible danger with (a) inadvertent clashes with other uses of our preferred tags and (b) deliberate spamming of this tag with inappropriate content. The risks are felt to be small and misuse should not unduly adversely affect the event.

OPML viewer

A OPML viewer provided by an externally-hosted service is hosted on the Web site [4]. There is a reliance on ongoing access to the service. The risks are felt to be small and links to alternative services are provided as a backup.

Microformats

Microformats are being used to markup contact details and dates and times of events. There is a risk that the microformats syntax could change; that the syntax could be used incorrectly (as microformats are relatively new and little experience of their usage is available). However only limited usage of microformats is planned at present and we will seek advice on our experiences from the wider community. In addition two tools (Tails Export and the Google hCalendar Greasemonkey script) will be used to test the microformats).
A microformat conversion service provided by an externally-hosted service is hosted on the Web site [5]. There is a reliance on ongoing access to the service. The risks are felt to be small and links to alternative services will be sought in order to provide a backup.

Suprglu

A Suprglu account has been established to host the RSS feeds provided by the Web site[6]. This service is provided by an externally-hosted service. There is a reliance on ongoing access to the service. However the service was set up to give a demonstration of syndication and it is not envisaged that this will provide a long-term service. The risks are felt to be small.

Google Search Facility

A search facility for the IWMW 2006 Web site area is provided by Google [7]. This service is provided by an externally-hosted service. There is a reliance on ongoing access to the service. However Google is a well-established service. We also noted that organisations such as W3C make use of the Google search facility (see search box on W3C home page). The risks are felt to be small.

Usage Analysis Service

A usage analysis service for the IWMW 2006 Web site area is provided by Sitemeter [8] and Google Analytics [9]. This service is provided by an externally-hosted service. There is a reliance on ongoing access to the service. However Sitemeter is a well-established service and has been used for several years on other areas of the UKOLN Web site and on IWMW Web sites in previous years. In addition, Google is a well-established company. In addition pages coning the Sitemeter icon and code are held in a single file which is pulled in through server-side scripting technologies. It would be simple to disable this service. Also note that the standard Web server log files are still being kept, so that access to alternative usage analysis data is always available. The risks are felt to be small.

Google Mapping Facility

An embedded Google mapping facility is provided on the IWMW 2006 Web site [10]. This service is provided by an externally-hosted service. There is a reliance on ongoing access to the service. However Google is a well-established service. In addition links to other maps are provided. The risks are felt to be small.

Gabbly Chat Facility

Links to the Gabbly chat service [11] have been added to allow this service to be tested during the workshop. This service is provided by an externally-hosted service and anybody can join in the chats. A record of the chat discussions could potentially be held by the remote organisation. Gabbly is an AJAX application, and there may be issues about the accessibility of the service. In addition information on the numbers and characteristics of the Gabbly user community seem to indicate that it is a new service and may not have sufficient momentum to provide a stable and sustainable service. However Gabbly will be used as an experiment and information on the potential concerns will be flagged.

Content Added To Wikipedia

Details of the IWMW workshop series have been added to Wikipedia [12]. This service is provided by an externally-hosted service and anybody can edit this content. However Wikipedia appears to be a stable service and content misuse seems to be managed effectively. The risks are felt to be small.

In addition to the risks associated with the specific services listed above there may be other risks which are not necessarily associated with particular services, as listed below:

Loss of ID needed to access services

The username and passwords used to access several of the services belong to an individual. Access to such services are therefore dependent on the individual, and access could become unavailable if anything untoward were to happen. However since the services are not mission-critical, this should not be a major problem. If the services are felt to be valuable, a more open approach to access of the services will be taken in the future.

Risks Of Not Using The Services

It should be noted that in addition to analysing the risks associated with the services listed above, there are also risks associated with not using such services! These are listed below:

Loss Of Credibility

If UKOLN is not seen to be actively engaged in an area of work with high public profile, such as Web 2.0, our reputation as a leader in digital information management may suffer.

Failure To Provide Useful Services To Our Users

If we fail to provide services which the users value, this may undermine our credibility.

Failure To Learn

If we fail to make use of such services, we will fail to learn about the strengths and weaknesses of such services, which will undermine our advisory role.

Failure To Exploit

If we fail to make use of such services, it will be difficult to exploit successful services in future events we organise.

Conflicts With Other Areas Of Work

If we seek to develop related services inhouse, or to install software provided by others, this will entail technical effort, which may be more effectively deployed in other areas of work.

Building On Related Work

It should be noted that this evaluation exercise builds on a number of previous evaluations of Web 2.0 technologies used during an event. A brief summary is given below:

UKOLN / UCISA Workshop on "Beyond Email - Strategies For Collaborative Working In The 21st Century"

A joint workshop was held in Leeds on 22^nd November 2004. At this workshop:

• Skype was used to allow a remote participant to listen in to selected talks.
• Instant Messaging was provided to support information discussions.
• An eternally-hosted Wiki was provided for use in the discussion groups.

For further information see the workshop Web site.

IWMW 2005

The IWMW 2005 workshop was held in Manchester on 6-8^th July 2004. At this workshop:

• Skype was used to allow a remote participant to listen in to selected talks.
• IRC was used to support information discussions.
• An externally-hosted Wiki was provided for use in the discussion groups.

For further information see the workshop Web site.

UKOLN / CETIS / UCISA Workshop on "Initiatives & Innovation: Managing Disruptive Technologies"

A joint workshop was held at the University of Warwick on Friday 24^th February 2006. At this workshop:

• A Wiki was provided for use by the discussion groups.
• Recordings of the speakers' talks were kept.
• A del.icio.us tag (ucisa-ukoln-cetis-2006) was used which enabled speakers to easily share resources mentioned in their presentations and to allow delegates to add related resources.
• A locally-hosted Wiki was used for use by the discussion groups, etc.

For further information see the workshop Web site.

Emerging Technologies and the 'Net Generation'

A research seminar was held at the University of Leiden, Holland on Friday 7^th April 2006. At the seminar:

• An external (paid for) Wiki was provided for use by the discussion groups.
• A del.icio.us tag (alt-2006-04-net-generation) was used which enabled speakers to easily share resources mentioned in their presentations and to allow delegates to add related resources.

For further information see the workshop Web site.

References

1. Chatbot, IWMW 2006 Web site, UKOLN,
   <http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/webmaster-2006/chatbot/>
2. Tags, IWMW 2006 Web site, UKOLN,
   <http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/webmaster-2006/tags/>
3. IWMW 2006 Bookmarks, del.icio.us,
   <http://del.icio.us/tag/iwmw2006>
4. OPML Viewer, IWMW 2006 Web site, UKOLN,
   <http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/webmaster-2006/rss/opml-viewer>
5. Microformats, IWMW 2006 Web site, UKOLN,
   <http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/webmaster-2006/microformats/>
6. IWMW 2006 RSS Feeds, Suprglu.com,
   <http://iwmw2006.suprglu.com/>
7. Search facility, IWMW 2006 Web site, UKOLN,
   <http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/webmaster-2006/search/>
8. Institutional Web Management Workshop 2006, Site Summary, Sitemeter,
   <http://www.sitemeter.com/?a=stats&s=sm3iwmw2006>
9. Google Analytics, Google,
   <http://www.google.com/analytics/>
10. IWMW 2006 Maps, UKOLN,
    <http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/webmaster-2006/maps/>
11. Gabbly, Gabbly,
    <http://gabbly.com>
12. IWMW, Wikipedia,
    <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IWMW>