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WWW 8 Trip Report

Brian Kelly

UK Web Focus

UKOLN

University of Bath

Bath, BA2 7AYUKOLN is funded by the Library and Information Commission, the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) of the Higher Education Funding Councils, as well as by project funding from the JISC and the European Union. UKOLN also receives support from the University of Bath where it is based.

EmailB.Kelly@ukoln.ac.ukURLhttp://www.ukoln.ac.uk/

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Contents

• Introduction• Tim Berners-Lee's Keynote talk• Panel Session on Search Engines• W3C Tracks at WWW 8 Conference• Microsoft and Open Standards talk• Papers• Questions See <http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/

issue20/web-focus/> for trip report.

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About UK Web Focus

UK Web Focus:• Advises UK HE community on Web developments• Funded by JISC• JISC representative on World Wide Web

Consortium (W3C)

Note UKOLN also has the Interoperability Focus

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About WWW8

WWW 8 Conference:• Held in Toronto, Canada from 11-14 May 1999• Smaller scale (no exhibition) • More research-focussed• No significant exciting new technology (unlike

1998 - RDF or 1997 - XML)• See <URL: http://www8.org/>

• Conference papers online - see <URL: http://www8.org/fullpaper.html >

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Tim Berners-Lee’s Keynote

• This year is the tenth anniversary of the Web• Original aim was to facilitate “human communication

through shared knowledge”• Have achieved much, but not yet universal writing• Next stage is the Semantic Web• RDF has important role to play• Inappropriate patent claims are hindering

development of Web • See <http://www.w3.org/Talks/1999/05/www8-tbl/Overview.html>

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Finding Anything in the Billion Page Web• Panel session on “Finding Anything in the Billion Page

Web: Are Algorithms the Key?”

• Panelists from Excite, AltaVista (Compaq) and Yahoo!

• Hardware is not a significant barrier

• Improved software algorithms will be important. E.g• Citation analysis (cf Google)• User profiles• Specialist search engines (implies 2-layer searches)

• Search engine vendors may discard embedded metadata

• Search engine vendors may make use of trusted third-party metadata

• Conclusions in line with UK HE’s interests!

PANEL

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W3C Track

See <http://www.w3.org/Talks/#1999>

W3C Track

WWW Access

WAI & Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

Internationalization

Television and the Web

W3C, the Web, and mobility

WWW Access

WAI & Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

Internationalization

Television and the Web

W3C, the Web, and mobility

XMLXML Update

W3C HTML Activity

RDF

XMLXML Update

W3C HTML Activity

RDF

Web Technologies & SocietyPlatform for Privacy Preferences (P3P)

Report on Signed-XML99 Workshop

Query Languages

Web Technologies & SocietyPlatform for Privacy Preferences (P3P)

Report on Signed-XML99 Workshop

Query Languages

Multimedia Models and Management

Style Sheets: CSS, XSL and CSS-OMCurrent directions in Web style sheets

SMIL: Multimedia for Everyone

Multimedia Models and Management

Style Sheets: CSS, XSL and CSS-OMCurrent directions in Web style sheets

SMIL: Multimedia for Everyone

Community Contributions

Web Characterization Activity

Community Contributions

Web Characterization Activity

Developer's Day

Towards CSS modularization

Style sheets for Voice Browsers

The CSS Object Model

Developer's Day

Towards CSS modularization

Style sheets for Voice Browsers

The CSS Object Model

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WAI

WAI• Web Accessibility Initiative• Web Content Accessibility Guidelines now out• See <http://www.w3.org/Talks/1999/0512-wai-www8-jb>

Need for accessibility audit of institutional web sites?

Need for institutional guidelines / incorporation into training programmes, etc?

W3C Track

NOTE: Gave talk on Accessibility and Metadata at WAI meeting after WWW8 conference. Does metadata have a role to play in providing machine-understandable definitions relating to accessibility? Should user profiles consider accessibility aspects?

NOTE: Gave talk on Accessibility and Metadata at WAI meeting after WWW8 conference. Does metadata have a role to play in providing machine-understandable definitions relating to accessibility? Should user profiles consider accessibility aspects?

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SMIL

SMIL:• Synchronized Multimedia Markup Language - an

XML application

• Players (e.g. RealNetworks G2) and authoring tools available

• Microsoft have proposed HTML+ Time (scripting rather than declarative implementation)

• SMIL 2.0 may include MS’s proposals• See <http://www.w3.org/Talks/1999/0513-smil-www8/>

• See <http://www.w3.org/AudioVideo/>• Michael Wilson (RAL) to give talk on SMIL at

Web Manager’s workshop in Sept

W3C Track

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Building Trust on the WebP3P:

• Platform for Privacy Preferences• Address need to address privacy concerns

(esp. in US)• Developments hindered by Intermind’s patent

claim (see Trip Report in Ariadne)• See <http://www.w3.org/Talks/1999/0511-www8p3p/>

W3C Track

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CC/PP

CC/PP:• Composite Capability/Preference Profiles (CC/PP):

A user side framework for content negotiation

• Driven by mobile phone companies

• Architectural framework for content negotiation for variety of client types?

• See <http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-CCPP>

W3C Track

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HTML

Challenges facing HTML: Poor quality markup

New kinds of browsers: TVs, PDAs, phones, etc

Pressure to subset HTML for simple clients

Pressure to extend HTML for richer clients

Combining HTML with other tag sets: Math, Vector Graphics, E-commerce, Metadata, ...

XHTML• Reformulation of HTML in XML

• TIDY will help

• See <http://www.xhtml.org/>

See <http://www.w3.org/Talks/1999/05/www8-html/sldie1.html>

W3C Track

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SVG

SVG• Scalable Vector Graphics• Most impressive demo at conference

• See <http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/>

W3C Track

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Other Comments

Appears to be a slowing down in development of protocol and data formats

• Increasing complexity and inter-dependence means more time must be spent in reviewing work of other working groups (cf XML and RDF Schemas)

• Patent and IPR concerns (CSS, XLink, P3P)

• HTTP/NG work seems to be slowing down

W3C Track

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Papers48 papers accepted (304 submitted)

Areas included:• Searching & Discovery Searching & Querying (1 &

2)

• Searching & Mining the Web XML

• Electronic Marketplace Links• Web Server Performance Customising Web Sites

• Hypermedia & Video Hypertext & Hypermedia

• Electronic Commerce, Security & Applications

• Web Document Management

• Multimedia & User Interaction

• Protocols & Performance

48 papers accepted (304 submitted)

Areas included:• Searching & Discovery Searching & Querying (1 &

2)

• Searching & Mining the Web XML

• Electronic Marketplace Links• Web Server Performance Customising Web Sites

• Hypermedia & Video Hypertext & Hypermedia

• Electronic Commerce, Security & Applications

• Web Document Management

• Multimedia & User Interaction

• Protocols & Performance

Panel Sessions:• Mobiles and Accessibility• Web-based Everything• Finding Anything on the Web• Web Design• Agent vs Direct Manipulation• Web as Application Platform

PAPERS

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Automatic RDF Generation For Resource Discovery• Paper by Charlotte Jenkins, Wolverhampton Univ.• “Automatic metadata generation may provide a

solution to the problem of inconsistent, unreliable metadata describing resources on the Web.”

• As Nicky Ferguson commented in his trip report: Exactly the right paper at the right time

• See <http://www.scit.wlv.ac.uk/~ex1253/rdf_paper/>

PAPERS

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Improving Web Usability with the Link Lens• Paper by Rob Procter, Edinburgh University

• URL as a user interface

http://www.lmnet.com/~bobh/shakeit.avi - “Shall I follow this link?”• Uses “link lens” to

display characteristics of link destination before going there

PAPERS

See <http://www8.org/w8-papers/4b-links/improve/>

See <http://www8.org/w8-papers/4b-links/improve/>

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Visual Preview for Link Traversal on the Web• Similar to Link Lens paper

• Provides thumbnail preview of link destination

• See <http://www8.org/w8-papers/4b-links/visual/visual.html>

• Live demo at <http://www.tk.uni-linz.ac.at/~theo/demonstrations/scientific/VPLT_Demo.html>

PAPERS

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Adding Support for Dynamic & Focused Search with Fetuccino• Development from work on site maps (Mapuccino)

• See <http://www8.org/w8-papers/5a-search-query/adding/adding.html>

• Post-processes search engine results

Q: “Is this legal?”

A: “Simulates end user session”

AltaVista: £££ involved

PAPERS

See <http://www.ibm.com/java/fetuccino/>

See <http://www.ibm.com/java/fetuccino/>

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Posters

• Proceedings of posters (short papers) were published

• Posters were displayed, with two hour period in which authors were available

• See list of posters at <http://www8.org/posters-final.html>

POSTERS

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Subject-Based Information Gateways in the UK• Poster by Brian Kelly and

Roddy MacLeod (EEVL)• Documented work of Subject

Gateways (SOSIG, ROADS, etc) and suggested areas for future work

• Documented work for web research community

• Attracted interest and provided useful feedback

• Nicky Ferguson and Dan Brickley (ILRT) provided help

POSTERS

See <http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/papers/www8/>See <http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/papers/www8/>

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Microsoft & Open Standards• Invited talk on Microsoft’s view of Open Standards• Talk by Mark Ryland failed to provide any insights -

simply repeated contents of poster (and T-short)• “There are consensus-driven and market-driven

standards - Microsoft supports both”• Question from Hakon Lie (formerly W3C, now

Opera): “Why still incomplete support for CSS1?”Answer: “Giving priority to user-requests”

INVITED TALK

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WWW 9

WWW 9 conference:• To be held in Amsterdam from 15-19 May 2000• SMIL presentation given at end of WWW8• Conference web site <URL: http://www9.org/>

• Preliminary topics include: E-Commerce - XML - Multimedia - Web Server Performance - Searching and Querying - Web Document Management - Protocols - Java - Web Site Design - Web Security - RDF - Database and Directory Services - Collaboration - Accessibility -

Metadata - New Languages • Deadline for papers 22 November 1999• Deadline for tutorials and workshops 10 September

1999• Deadlines for posters to be announced

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Commercial Break

• The third Institutional Web Management workshop takes place at Goldsmiths College, London on 7-9 September.

• Main annual event for members of institutional web teams

• Topics include:Design - Web Site Navigation - Web Tools - Personalisation - Intranets and Extranets - Cultural and Legal Issues - Web Editor Career Development - etc.

• See <http://warriormac.gold.ac.uk/webconf/> for details