Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and Digital Preservation

Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and Digital Preservation Brian Kelly UKOLN University of Bath Bath, UK Email [email_address] UKOLN is supported by: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/mla-london-2008-07/ About This Talk A recap of Web preservation challenges and approaches to the preservation of Web content. But will use of Web 2.0 services lead to new preservation concerns? How much of a concern is this? And what steps can be taken to minimise the risks of data loss? This work is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 licence (but note caveat) Resources bookmarked using ' mla-london-2008-07 ' tag

Contents

What’s the Problem?

Disappearing domains

Disappearing data

Broken services

Preservation and Web 1.0

Case studies

Toolkit

Preservation and Web 2.0

Third party services

Communications rather than resources

Is Web Site Preservation An Issue?

Digital Resources Don't Rot

Digital resources (images, video, software, Web sites, …) don't degrade due to environmental factors. This is a key difference with physical resources.

Web sites are made from various digital resources: HTML pages, GIF, JPEG, etc. image files, PDF resources, software (scripts, JavaScript, etc.)

These won't degrade so why is Web site preservation an issue?

Isn't the fact that old Web sites won't disappear and may be embarrassing more of a challenge?

The Problem

Digital Resources Do Rot!

In fact digital resource do 'rot':

Operating systems are upgraded and existing applications case to work

Security holes are identified and there is a need to install patches

Resources may be dependent on external resources (e.g. links, news feeds, …) which may disappear

Resources may be hosted by external services and there is a need for ongoing funding for the hosting

…

The Problem

Preservation In A Web 1.0 World

The Web 1.0 environment:

Static content

Managed by organisation

The challenges:

Changes in funding

“Mothballing

Legal issues (not covered!)

…

Web 1.0

The Nightmare Scenario

To be avoided:

The funding finishes

Project staff leave, partnership dissolves

Hosting agency upgrades operating system, resulting in scripts to access resources from backend database are broken

User finds page with invitation to project launch and travels to meeting. Unfortunately the event took place in 2002

Invoice for domain name is not paid, as administrator has left

Web site domain taken over by porn company

Prime Minister picks up pen containing project URL and visits pornographic Web site

Web 1.0

It Has Happened

Webtechs.com

Software company which hosted early HTML validation service

In 1998/99 confusion over payment of domain name

March 1999 company receives many messages saying validation service is now a porn site

Over 30,000 links to Web site!

Sept 1999 porn company agrees to sell domain name back to Webtech

Web 1.0

Technical Issues

Standards And Formats

Has the Web site been designed using open standards, which should help future-proofing?

Have proprietary formats been used (for which backwards compatibility may not be considered)

Architecture & Implementation

Has the technical architecture of the Web site been documented?

Can I continue to use technical systems after funding has finished

Web 1.0 Note that in reality content owners may have little control over the formats used and the technical architecture.

Content Issues

Accuracy:

Is the content of my Web site accurate today – and tomorrow

Could the content of my Web site be misleading

Usability:

Are links working today – and tomorrow

Legal:

Is my Web site legal today (accessibility; copyright; defamation; IPR; …)?

Will my Web site be legal tomorrow, if new legislation is enacted?

Web 1.0 Note that in reality rather than necessarily taking a safe position over, say, legal issues, a risk assessment approach may be taken

Mothballing Your Web Site (1)

Before funding finishes you should take steps for the mothballing of your Web site:

Run a link check across the Web site. Fix broken internal links and as many external links as is reasonable. Document the link report.

Run HTML (and CSS) validation checks across the Web site. Fix as many invalid pages as is reasonable. Document the findings.

Run an accessibility check across the Web site. Fix as many inaccessible pages as is reasonable. Document the findings.

This should not be an onerous task if you have following best practices. Note that errors found later occurred after your funding finished. Web 1.0

You should also address technical areas:

Remove any backend scripts which are no longer needed (e.g. online booking forms for old events).

Remember that scripts, etc. are liable to go wrong. Ensure that applications are configured to break gracefully and provide meaningful errors:

The config.ssi is missing. This should be reported to the systems administrator (email administrator@foo.org.uk or ring +44 020 123 123. Please provide the URL of the broken page and the project name)

Apache error 6963

Web 1.0

You should also address the content of your Web site:

Clarify the status of the Web site on the home page.

Ensure the tense of the content reflects the position i.e. don't say " This project will … "

Ensure that contact details will remain valid i.e. provide generic email addresses not an individuals

Remember that many users will arrive deep in your Web site (e.g. using Google). If necessary use CSS to flag all pages with a watermark

This Web site is no longer maintained. See home page for details See <http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/qa-focus/ documents/briefings/briefing-04/> Web 1.0

Case Study 1 - Exploit Interactive

Exploit Interactive :

EU-funded ejournal available at < http://www.exploit-lib.org/ >

Funded from Jan 1999 – Dec 2000

Web site is still hosted locally

Issues:

Should we continue hosting domain after 3 years?

What is the cost of this (domain name registration, disk storage, system maintenance)?

Web 1.0

Case Study - Exploit Interactive

Findings :

Disk storage is 4Gb (large proportion is log files)

A 30 Gb disk drive costs ~ £40

It was decide to run an annual link check of the Web site. Although there were broken links to external sites, the internal links all worked.

It was estimated that it would take about 30 minutes / year to run a link check and document findings.

A policy for the ongoing provision of the Web site was agreed

See < http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/qa-focus/ documents/case-studies/case-study-17/ >

Web 1.0

Is Web 2.0 Different?

How does Web site preservation differ for Web 2.0:

Use of 3 rd party services

Emphasis on collaboration and communication, rather than access to resources

More complex IPR issues

Richer diversity of services

Let’s look at:

Case study 1 - wikis

Case study 2 – blogs

Case study 3 – reusing data

Case study 4 – comms tools (disposable data)

Case study 5 – recording events

Web 2.0

Case Study 1: A Public Wiki

WetPaint wiki used to support UKOLN workshop

Approaches taken:

Open access to all prior to & during event (to minimise barriers to creating content)

Access restricted to WetPaint users after event

Access later restricted to event organisers

Web 2.0 Many aspects of Web site curation are to do with implementing such best practices, rather than implementing technical solutions

Case Study 1: A Public Wiki

WetPaint provides an option for backing up data.

A zipped file of the pages can be saved for storing on a locally managed service.

Web 2.0 There are limitations in this particular service (poor quality HTML, internal links don’t work, …) But this does illustrate an approach which can be taken.

Case Study 2: Blog Migration

How might you migrate the contents of a blog (e.g. you’re leaving college)?

This question was raised by Casey Leaver, shortly before leaving Warwick University

Web 2.0

She migrated her blog from blogs at Warwick Univ to Wordpress

Web 2.0 Note, though, that not all data was transferred (e.g. title, but not contents) so there’s a need to check transfer mechanisms

A backup of UK Web Focus blog is available on Vox:

Manual migration of new posts every few weeks

Only migrates text

Doesn’t migrate images, embedded videos, internal links, comments, …

Web 2.0 Migration of blogs, wikis, etc. is not currently an easy task 

Case Study 3: Reusing Data

Blog post in Facebook. Possible concerns:

It’s not sustainable

You’ve given ownership to Facebook

Web 2.0

Response:

The post is managed in WordPress; Fb displays copy (to new audience)

Fb don’t claim ownership – they claim rights to make money (e.g. through ads)

Case Study 4: Disposable Data

Twitter – example of a micro-blogging application

Facebook status messages is another related example

Web 2.0

Issues:

Is the Twitter service will sustainable over a long period?

What will happen to the data?

What about the IPR for ‘tweets’?

…

Many twitterers regard their tweets as disposal

I tend to use Twitter as a ‘virtual water cooler’ – sharing gossip, jokes and occasional work-related information with (mainly) people I know

Web 2.0 You could make use of clients which manage your tweets (e.g. treat like email) But you should develop your policies first, prior to exploring technologies

Skype (or your preferred VoIP application) are growing in popularity

Web 2.0

Issues:

Is the digital data (the call) preserved?

What about the video and the IM chats?

Possible responses:

Am I bovvered?

I didn’t bother with analogue phones, why should I worry now?

Case Study 5: Digitized Talks

Seminar on Open Science given at UKOLN in Feb 2008.

Video clip of opening 10 mins taken & uploaded to YouTube

Issues:

Privacy

Quality

Benefits

Long term access

Benefits identified – now how do we seek to deploy recordings of seminars, conferences, etc. on a more systematic basis? This is work in progress – but see IWMW 2007 videos

Role Of The Internet Archive