Slides for the workshop session on “Providing information to third parties (3)” (C2) at the IWMW 2001 event held at Queen's University Belfast on 25-27 June 2001. See http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/webmaster-2001/sessions.html#c2

1. Providing Information
To Third Parties:
The Pros And Cons
Brian Kelly
UKOLN
University of Bath
Bath, BA2 7AY
UKOLN is supported by:
Email
B.Kelly@ukoln.ac.uk
URL
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/
Pres 3

2. 2
Advantages
Advantages
Promotes your organisation
Drives 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

3. 3
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Information may become out-of-date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

4. 4
Universities-link.com
Much 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.ukhttp://www.leeds-university.co.uk
Jeremy Harmer

5. 5
Directory4students
Discussion on “Another ripoff site” started in March 2001
http://www.directory4students.com/http://www.directory4students.com/
Bath Univ map!Bath Univ map!

6. 6
Questions
What 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?

7. 7
Need For Policy
What 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)

8. 8
Policy Requirements
An 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
• …

9. 9
Formulating Your Own Policy
Attempt the group exercise C2-3 to:
• Formulate an institutional policy on providing
information to third parties
• Discuss implementation and policing aspects

10. 10
Policies on Linking
Permission to link to your Web site:
• Not needed – this would stifle growth of the Web
• Needed in some areas (frames, links to images, …)
Framing Policy
Technical 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
Framing Policy
Technical 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

11. 11
Fusion Sites
An aggregation / fusion Web site may contain portions
of Web sites
http://my.netscape.com/http://my.netscape.com/
Accepted Reuse
You will expect parts of
your Web site to
appear within remote
services:
• In search engines
• In archiving
services (Alexa)
• In offline browsers
• In caches
• …
Accepted Reuse
You will expect parts of
your Web site to
appear within remote
services:
• In search engines
• In archiving
services (Alexa)
• In offline browsers
• In caches
• …

12. 12
Conclusions
What conclusions have we reached?