Slides for talk given at IWMW 1998 held at the University of Newcastle on 15-17 September 1998. See http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/webmaster-sep1998/materials/

1. Institutional Web Management Workshop - Sept 1998 slide 1
Events on-line
Stephen Emmott
Web Editor
King’s College London
King’s College London is dedicated to the advancement of knowledge, learning and understanding in
the service of society.

2. Institutional Web Management Workshop - Sept 1998 slide 2
Introduction
About King’s
– over 5000* staff; over 16,500* students; Expenditure of £254*
million; 9 schools of study; 7 campuses across London
– combination of centralized and de-centralized administration across
the board
About my role
– Web Editor
– Central (and first) point of contact
– Tension between requirements (plural) and resources (singular)
*Projected figures for Autumn 1999

3. Institutional Web Management Workshop - Sept 1998 slide 3
Requirements
Current approach
– Printing sets the standard
– Limitations of print-based approach: content gathered manually;
manual collation of content; batch-processing with infrequent
updates; no-backtracking nor opportunities for alteration of content/
presentation once printed/ distributed
New approach
– Collection: extracting content from the organisation
– Storage: maintaining a single source
– Distribution: access for all at minimal cost whilst offering the
opportunity to alter content/ presentation at any time
– Presentation: aspiring to the print standard

4. Institutional Web Management Workshop - Sept 1998 slide 4
Choosing a system
XML
– Overview
– Storage and granularity
– XML is transparent, flexible, portable, and standardized
XML + ODB
– The need to be flexible without loosing balance
– About Frontier
» Brief History
» Using the system

5. Institutional Web Management Workshop - Sept 1998 slide 5
Implementation
The system has two key components:
– The DTD (Document Type Definition)
» The blueprint for the way in which the events content is
encoded and the way in which it used/ manipulated in the
system
– The Frontier ODB (Object Database)
» The system used to collect, parse (into XML), store and
distribute events content
» Built-in web-server
All transactions take place through the WWW -
clients contribute content; server collects, stores and
distributes content; clients access content

6. Institutional Web Management Workshop - Sept 1998 slide 6
Implementation: the DTD
<?XML version="1.0"?>
<!-- This Document Type Definition declares Entities, Elements, Attributes and Notations for the document type "kcl_events" -->
<!ELEMENT EVENT (#PCDATA | CREATOREMAIL | CREATED | MODIFIED | TIME | DATE | TYPE | SOURCE | COLLECTION | TITLE |
BOOKINGINFO | SPEAKER | SPEAKERDESIG | SPEAKERSOURCE | SIGNIFICANCE | ACCESS | LOCATION | DIRECTIONS |
DESCRIPTION | MOREINFO)*>
<!ELEMENT CREATOREMAIL (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT CREATED (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT MODIFIED (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT TIME (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT DATE (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT TYPE (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT SOURCE (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT COLLECTION (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT TITLE (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT BOOKINGINFO (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT SPEAKER (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT SPEAKERDESIG (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT SPEAKERSOURCE (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT SIGNIFICANCE (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT ACCESS (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT LOCATION (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT DIRECTIONS (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT DESCRIPTION (#PCDATA)>
<!ELEMENT MOREINFO (#PCDATA)>
*
*Please note: this DTD is subject to revision

7. Institutional Web Management Workshop - Sept 1998 slide 7
Implementation: overview
Event
page
Event
page
Event
page
Contributors Frontier
ODB
WWW
pages
Index
page
Link
page

8. Institutional Web Management Workshop - Sept 1998 slide 8
Implementation: closer
In
- Event submitted via on-line form
- Parsed into XML using DTD
- Stored as a text object (string).
Out
-Each event is transformed into HTML and exported to file
-Hierarchy of ‘Yahoo-style’ HTML link pages generated and
exported to file
- Main (index) page generated and exported to file
- Exported pages uploaded to main College server via FTP
Frontier
ODB

9. Institutional Web Management Workshop - Sept 1998 slide 9
Demonstration
On-screen demonstration of the live system:
– Consumers (users) viewpoint
» See computer screen
– Contributors viewpoint
» See computer screen
– The Administrator viewpoint
» See computer screen

10. Institutional Web Management Workshop - Sept 1998 slide 10
Bibliography
Connolly, Dan. XML: principles, tools & techniques,World Wide Web
Journal 2: 4, Winter 1997.
– http://www.w3j.com/xml/ (table of contents)
Frontier web-site
– http://www.scripting.com/frontier5/
In-progress
– http://interaction.in-progress.com/xpublish
WebTechs Validation Service
– http://valsvc.webtechs.com/url/
XML.com
– http://www.xml.com/

11. Institutional Web Management Workshop - Sept 1998 slide 11
Software
Fetch (Mac only)
: used for uploading files to the main WWW server
– http://www.dartmouth.edu/
Frontier 5.0.1(Mac, Win’NT, Win’95)
: the heart of the system
– http://www.userland.com/frontier/trial.html
Xpublish 1.0 (Mac only)
: generate and validate XML DTD
– http://interaction.in-progress.com/xpublish
BBEdit 4.5
: general text editing
– http://web.barebones.com/products/bbedit/bbedit.html

12. Institutional Web Management Workshop - Sept 1998 slide 12
Q & A
Any Questions?