http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/conferences/rsc-conference-2007/
What Can Mashups Offer?
RSC 3.0 Conference, October 2007
Brian Kelly Acceptable Use Policy
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About Me / About This Talk
Brian Kelly:
• UK Web Focus – a JISC/MLA-funded post
• Advises on Web technologies – emerging
technologies, standards & best practices
• Based at UKOLN – a national centre of expertise
in digital information management
• Regular blog posts on UK Web Focus blog at
<http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/>
This talk:
• Introduces the concept of mashups
• Provides some examples
• Suggests why RSCs should engage in making use
of mashups
2

What is A Mashup?
A mashup is:
• A Web application that combines data from more
than one source into a single integrated tool; a
typical example is the use of cartographic data from
Google Maps
• Three general flavours:
1. Consumer mashups: e.g. Google Maps apps, with
emphasis on presentation
2. Data / enterprise mashups: merging data from internal
and external sources
3. Business mashup: combination of above: combines
data integration, presentation plus addition
functionality, such as collaboration features
From Wikipedia
3

How I Use Mashups (1)
Some simple mashups
which we can all create
• Location of the organisation
And note benefits over
conventional maps
• Location of other
organisation – in this case,
places I’ve spoken at
These examples require me to copy JavaScript code
and tweak parameters or edit simple XML files
4

How I Use Mashups (2)
I store a copy of many
slides on Slideshare
The slides can then be
embedded and viewed on
other Web sites – no
downloading needed
There’s also an interface
in Facebook – so you
gain the social networking
benefits for free
These examples simply need me to copy a HTML
fragment to my own Web page
5

How I Use Mashups (3)
Blog context can be
easily embedded in
other applications 
Here’s the UK Web
Focus blog (with one
reader’s comment) ..
… and here’s the blog
aggregated in the JISC
Emerge community (with
another comment)
Some people feel that content replication can be confusing and
fragments discussion. I prefer to maximise access and
encourage discussions from multiple communities.
6

How I Use Mashups (4)
As well as content, you can
integrate communication
tools into Web sites
Embedded chat tools such
as Meebo, Gabbly, etc. are
growing in popularity
I’ve recently started to
experiment with embedded video
chat tools, such as TokBox –
used at a recent conference to
allow a remote speaker to
participate in event
7

What I’d Like To See
Northumbria University
were early users of
Google Maps
Note how:
• Key locations (e.g. for
Open Day) shown
• Personalised maps
can be provided
They also have a national
map & data for UK
Universities (with
Northumbria always
shown)
Should RSCs do likewise, for colleges in their area?
8

Other Examples
Other examples of mashups (provided after a Facebook
status inviting suggestions):
• Community building: Map showing locations of
contributors to the Archives Hub service
• Country-specific Contacts: Aberdeen University
providing links for overseas students to contacts in
various countries
• Calendar Information: Details of Oxford
University’s Continuing Education courses are (a)
located on Google Maps and (b) listed on Google
Calendar
• “They Stole OUr Learning Environment - Now
We're Stealing It Back”: Various blog posts
describing OU’s work with mashups, Web 2.0, …
9

Not Just Data
It’s not just about repurposed
data or embedding
applications
The term mashup has its roots
in music cf. I’m Sorry I Haven’t
A Clue’s ‘Lyrics of one tune to
tune of another”
A video example of this was created by Graham Attwell
which juxtaposed:
• A JISC cartoon SOA approach to development and
• The user’s perspective / informal learning
10

Creating Mashups
Yahoo Pipes is a popular
tool for bringing mashup
creation to the masses.
You can:
• Explore existing
Pipes, use, copy and
tweak them
• Create new Pipes
from scratch
See OUseful blog for
details of how to do this
Other mashup creation tools include PopFly and the
Google Mashup Editor
11

Doing It By Hand
I create by RSS feeds
<item>
<title>What Can Mashups Offer?</title>
manually:
<link>http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/
conferences/rsc-conference-2007/</link>
• RSS feed of past & future
<guid>http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/
events
conferences/rsc-conference-2007/</guid>
<description>Brian Kelly will give a talk on \"What
• <META> tag for
Can Mashups Offer?\" at the \"RSC 3.0\" annual
conference at Ramanda Hotel Birmingham on 16
individual events
October 2007.</description>
Various applications can
<geo:lat>52.545043</geo:lat>
<geo:long>-1.846733</geo:long>
render this data
<dc:date>2007-10-16</dc:date>
</item>
<meta name=\"geo.placename\" content=\"Ramanda Hotel, Birmingham\" />
<meta name=\"geo.position\" content=\"52.545043,-1.846733\" />
<meta name=\"ICBM\" content=\"52.545043,-1.846733\" />
12

Supporting A Community
IWMW 2007 featured an
innovation competition
which encouraged
lightweight development
Submissions
• Where delegates are
from & what they’re
blogging about
• Edge Hill students
provide location of
How about: their home town
• A mashup competition for colleges in
• Newport College
your region?
have ported their
• Use of mashups to support RSC events,
VLE to Facebook
such as this one?
13

But Why?
We’ve seen example of various mashups
Can you give some suggestions why mashups can be
important?
How about:
• They allow others to add value to your data - see Paul
Walk’s post on “The coolest thing to do with your data
will be thought of by someone else”
• You can build richer services that you could do one
your own, by making use of existing applications
• New insights can be provided
• It relates to the JISC IE (Information Environment)
vision of seamless access to education & research
services
• ...
14

The Challenges
What challenges to deployment of mashups
can you envisage?
How about
• How do we learn how to deploy mashups?
• What about the legal obstacles?
• Are mashup services sustainable?
• What about institutional barriers?
15

Addressing The Challenges (1)
Approaches:
• Learning: Video, podcasts, tutorials, etc. on tools
are available.
• Legal barriers: A need for risk assessment and
flexibility (and try to provide Creative Commons
licences for your resources)
• Sustainability: What happens if Google becomes
bankrupt (or more realistically, changes its terms &
conditions). Again risk assessment and flexibility.
• Institutional inertia: Beware the ‘ownership
fundamentalist’ who feels the need to own all data
and software (more of a problem for HE?) Try
things - “seek forgiveness, not permission”
16

Addressing The Challenges (2)
But what about:
• Firewalls which
may block
embedded
objects?
• The accessibility
of embedded
objects esp.
with embedding
using Flash or
JavaScript?
Are these insurmountable barriers, or are there ways to
overcome such limitations?
17

Conclusions
To conclude:
• Mashups are a key part of Web 2.0
• Exploit the notion of ‘the Web as a
platform’ – the data and the application
can be anywhere
• The technical infrastructure is now in
place
• RSS is important – it’s not just news
syndication
• An opportunity for experimentations,
leading to service deployment
18

Questions
Questions are welcome
19