iwmw 2001: providing information to third parties (3)

Providing Information To Third Parties:

The Pros And Cons

Brian KellyUKOLNUniversity of BathBath, BA2 7AY

UKOLN is supported by:

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

Pres 3

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Advantages

Advantages

Promotes your organisationDrives traffic to your Web site

Additional links to Web site enhance Google search rating

Provides a disinterested view

Open to other communities

May have more attractive design

May provide advanced technical features

You’d look odd if you weren’t included

Third party Web site may have bigger budget (e.g. marketing) May add positive info

about your organisation you won’t say (“party city of the UK”)

QA procedures may be better than yours

Might be possible to automate distribution to minimise resource implications

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Disadvantages

Disadvantages

Requires resource to provide information

Potential visitors may not leave portal to visit your Web site

Information may become out-of-date

Information may be embarrassing

QA procedures may be worse than yours

Loss of accountability

Loss of control

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Universities-link.comMuch discussion on website-info-mgt JISCmail list in Feb/Mar 2001

Is anyone aware of http://www.university-link.com/? They have information about a number of universities, including for us ripped off imagery from our site ..

They .. also acquired http://www.leeds-university.co.uk and pointed this at our 'entry' on university-link.com. Web space appears to be Geocities. They have included an e-mail link which forwards to our Alumni Officer, who is not impressed (it's her site that they ripped the imagery off)!

http://www.leeds-university.co.uk

Jeremy Harmer

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Directory4studentsDiscussion on “Another ripoff site” started in March 2001

http://www.directory4students.com/

Bath Univ map!

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QuestionsWhat should you do if:

• An unknown commercial body uses your materials (logos, text) without permission?

• A HE body (HERO, another university, ..) appears to use your materials without permission?

• An individual uses your materials without permission?

Do you have a policy which governs your response, or is this just your gut reaction?

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Need For PolicyWhat if:

• The commercial company provides a valuable service, is featured in the national press, and helps to drive many visitors to your Web site

• The organisation obtained the information in a legitimate way (VCs had agreed that their corporate info could be made available to a national body)

• The individual was a happy graduate of your University who wanted to praise the institution (and maybe donate some money)

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Policy RequirementsAn institutional policy:

• Should be approved by the institution• Should provide support for Web managers

An institutional policy could cover:• Use of text by third parties• Use of images, logos, etc.• Policies on linking to institution• …

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Formulating Your Own PolicyAttempt the group exercise C2-3 to:

• Formulate an institutional policy on providing information to third parties

• Discuss implementation and policing aspects

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Policies on LinkingPermission to link to your Web site:

• Not needed – this would stifle growth of the Web• Needed in some areas (frames, links to images, …)

Framing PolicyTechnical solutions available (HTML code to remove frames) but:

• May be services which use frames sensibly (e.g. cataloguing interface for subject gateways)

• Could cause accessibility problems

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Fusion SitesAn aggregation / fusion Web site may contain portions of Web sites

http://my.netscape.com/

Accepted ReuseYou will expect parts of your Web site to appear within remote services:

• In search engines• In archiving

services (Alexa)• In offline browsers• In caches• …

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ConclusionsWhat conclusions have we reached?