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DataWeb: Three worlds collide

A talk given at the Institutional Web Management Workshop, Newcastle, 15-17

September 1998

Victoria Marshall and Kevin O'Neill, CLRC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory

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Contents• What is DataWeb?• Motivation• General requirement #1: Distributed responsibility• General requirement #2: Utilise existing databases• General requirement #3: Consistent(ish) look and feel• Problem #1: Distributed responsibility• Problem #2: User interfaces vs databases• Problem #3: Technology• What is ASP?• Disadvantages of ASP• Advantages of ASP• System architecture• Web design concept #1: Activities• Web design concept #2: Expand-in-place metaphor• Web design concept #3: Different views• Internal web design concept number 1: Weblet managers and editors• Internal web design concept number 2: HTML• Internal web design concept number 3: It's the Web :-(• Design of the database• Conclusions• The future

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What Is DataWeb?It's a web It's a web created from a database It's a web created from a database on-the-fly

The DCI web is a practical application of it Launched in April 1997 First phase of development finished by October 1997 About to start planning next (Java) phase

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MotivationOld TCS and CISD webs fairly large (>7K pages) Design largely unchanged since 1994 Difficult to maintain by hand so badly out of date Update bottleneck through just one web manager

Something had to be done... but what?

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General requirement #1: Distributed responsibilityEmpowerment Give responsibility for pages to group leaders/project managers (And everybody else too if they so desire) "I'd be more inclined to do something if I could do it myself" Doesn't have to all go through one or two fed-up individuals

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General requirement #2:Utilise existing databasesNo point in yet another copy to get out of synch Most administrative DBs already have established update mechanisms so make them work for you Databases reflect up-to-the-minute changes Re-use of the data works two ways:

• 1. More uses for existing data • 2. More uses for the new data

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General requirement #2:Consistent(ish) look and feelDon't want to have to edit all the pages every time the corporate name changes

• ... or the corporate colours change • ... or every time the department is restructured

(as happens to DCI) • ... or every time a new browser or version of

HTML comes out ... or every time the web manager decides it's time for a revamp But allow some individuality if required But cannot be a closed system

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Problem #1: Distributed responsibilityDistributed responsibility --> distributed editing Distributed editing --> variable HTML expertise Distributed editing --> no central point of control But management still need to find out what's going on (Who did it? When? Why?)

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Problem #2:User interfaces vs databasesA good DB structure rarely makes an exciting interface ... and vice-versa Database people say: "The information must be structured in a meaningful way" User interface people say: "The information is excruciating and inpenetrably structured" Database people say: "The colour is immaterial" User interface people say: "Of *course* the shade of pink matters!" Need a middle ground - a solid DB, an attractive presentation, and tailored queries in the middle

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Problem #3:TechnologyIs this feasible? Is it going to be too slow? Java? cgi-bins? ASP? IDC? Something else? Management wanted zero budget with zero learning time ASP happened to come along at just the right time ASP was a server-side (rather than client-side) solution ASP + ODBC can access SQL DB for data management

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What Is ASPASP = Active Server Pages Part of Microsoft's IIS web server Enables (VBScript and/or JavaScript) scripting embedded within HTML pages

Example of ASP

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Disadvantages of ASPASP ties us to Microsoft and NT on the server-side (But the concepts and DB interface easily translate to, say, Java)

Bad interaction between server and developing code

You're stuck with .asp? in the URLs unless you do something clever...

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Advantages of ASPCheap and cheerful No client-side constraints Very fast to put together (but we're not pretending that this is a real programming language) Fast execution (for a script) ODBC links to any data source Example of ODBC access using ASP

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System Architecture

ODBC access to various DBs; Images, PostScript, videos on disk Copied across at 2am (Buffer Time Zone) ASP files for data entry NOT copied; nothing goes back inside

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Web design concept #1: ActivitiesWeb is architectured in terms of activities (project, CCP, facility etc) Each activity is a weblet in its own right, with a human-typable URL Activities organised into broad classes (R&D, Coordination, Facility etc)...

Example of the R&D broad class ... and types within them

Example of the Distributed Information sub-class

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Web design concept #2: Expand-in-place metaphorBased on GUIDE (Peter Brown, U. Kent, 1986)

Example of an expand-in-place activity Hyper-(semi)structured text - not the usual 'anarchic' web presentation (more memorable?) Discourages 'everything linked to everything else' spaghetti Reader's context is maintained (and no massed ranks of meaningless icons to do it!) Imposes some linearity on the text

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Web design concept #3: Different viewsOne big HTML page for printing

Example Searching on acronyms, titles, keywords, section headings, body text etc

Example search page By associated people (on person pages)

Example person page Publications by associated activity

Example activity publications page (Note the REFER format just for fun!)

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Internal web design concept number 1: Weblet managers and editorsEach activity has a Weblet Manager and Weblet Editor (possibly the same person) Weblet Manager is the contact person; responsible for the page content Can choose to delegate the actual editing task to... Weblet Editor who is part of that activity/group Group/Team has responsibility for their own pages They agree changes, new wording etc off-line then Weblet Editor makes them

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Internal web design concept number 2: HTMLProforma approach to inputting text Web Manager's job to determine departmental and/or corporate L&F (the entire web can be revamped in a matter of minutes) Authors are freed from having to know the overall presentation policy of the pages For very simply structured text, no HTML knowledge is required Better if you know at least <P> Some limitations imposed by SQL on text size (16K characters)

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Internal web design concept number 3: It's the Web :-(Web browsers were never really designed for input Forms interface is not a good GUI; Java might help a bit Major headaches were the Back/Reload buttons Subtle differences between browsers affect the presentation and input

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Design of the databaseThis was Kevin's job (thank goodness!) He says "The biggest problem was understanding the interface designer" Tension between optimising the DB for reporting and updates via the interface

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ConclusionsDataWeb is a cutting-edge concept as well as an application The result is pretty good, and has been in use within the department for over a year 19 groups on-line, 89 activities, >1000 publications, 270 partners People don't always realise it's a database! Could you just...

Our group is called 'XYZ' but we prefer to be known as 'PQR'; could you change it on our web pages, please? In my photo my hair is too blond; could you make it a bit more brunette, please?

The project has highlighted inconsistencies between personnel's/everybody else's view(s) of the world! ASP is cheap and cheerful; useful for smallish things

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The futureImplementation in Java Dynamic, virtual weblets Registration of interest

That was the corporate pitch... Any questions so far?

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