Usability advocate Jakob Neilsen's latest Alertbox recommends that you "Stop Password Masking" when creating systems that require passwords.
The Summary:
Usability suffers when users type in passwords and the only feedback they get is a row of bullets. Typically, masking passwords doesn't even increase security, but it does cost you business due to login failures.
Jakob's stuff is always food for thought, and it's hard to argue with his points about feedback, but in an education or library environment I can't imagine it would be a good thing. Simple situations, like showing a web application in a training room would be like broadcasting your login details without some fancy dataprojector footwork, especially in our environment where we are the antithesis of single sign on.
He suggests that for situations like the one above there be a checkbox offering to mask the password, which I think would decrease usability with clutter.
His call to abandon legacy design is, to me, a case of carefully chosen words to slant meaning. If he had of said abandon convention it would have been much less convincing. Masked passwords aren't just a web thing, ATMs and EFTPOS use them, as have computers since before ARPANET.
We do have students who get their passwords wrong, and with increasingly stringent rules about passwords containg upper and lower case, punctuation, numeric characters, this isn't going to get better unless we change our whole approach to authentication.
One option is card readers with PINs. Many government departments use this method (one I know of allows staff to travel to any other office in the country, place their card in the reader of any computer, enter their PIN and they get their Window profile AND their phone number.
If banks (and customers) think the Card/PIN method is secure enough for financial transactions that suggests it's secure enough for our needs.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Friday, February 13, 2009
Horizon unConference part 2
Day 3 and we start with an extremely interesting chat with John Dalton who, though based in Hobart is a DBA for LibraryThing. He talked a little about LibraryThing 4 Libraries, but stressed he wasn't a salesman, and a lot about user tags and the power of folksonomies - and coffee table books.
Next DA's GM talked about the future of publishing from his perspective - probably the highlight was the video of the Espresso Book Machine in action. Yet again I got a sense that an industry intertwined with tertiary education was at the brink of major change. Publishers are getting closer to accepting the primacy of E over P, and considering ideas like selling micro content (eg a chapter out of a textbook).
The next ILS vendor was Civica showing Spydus. I got all nostalgic, having administered URICA back in the mid 90s - the product has come a long way - in fact it's not recognisable as related to URICA at all, which was written in Pick and sitting on a UniData dbms on a proprietary UNIX box (how did I get so old?) - Spydus is firmly in the Windows camp sitting on SQLServer and with client modules that act very much in the manner of the Microsoft Office Suite. It was the only Australian provider.
We then had Innovative Interfaces present, tag team, their core product and a couple of add ons. They worked hard to dispel the 'black box' myths about Millenium, saying that the data was fully accessible through web services. The ability to access functions associated with other modules without having to leave the module you were in was very appealing (eg create a temp bib record while in circulation). Another high point was the fuzzy search that when queried for 'Harry Potter and the Magician's Rock' asked if we meant 'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone'.
The day wrapped up with a group session led by Anne Scott of the University of Canterbury. We got a sense of who was happy to sit with Horizon and tweak HIP, who was looking at a discovery layer over Horizon (which would make the move from Horizon transparent to searchers). We agreed to take HES up on their offer of groupware to give us a space to continue the conversation.
We discussed the possibility of collective bargaining, and while it makes sense to combine our economic 'might' there is little chance we would have identical aims for our resource discovery systems.
A draining but thought provoking three days, well organised, and a much needed crash course in the major ILS options open to us. I look forward talking more about the things it's making me ponder.
Next DA's GM talked about the future of publishing from his perspective - probably the highlight was the video of the Espresso Book Machine in action. Yet again I got a sense that an industry intertwined with tertiary education was at the brink of major change. Publishers are getting closer to accepting the primacy of E over P, and considering ideas like selling micro content (eg a chapter out of a textbook).
The next ILS vendor was Civica showing Spydus. I got all nostalgic, having administered URICA back in the mid 90s - the product has come a long way - in fact it's not recognisable as related to URICA at all, which was written in Pick and sitting on a UniData dbms on a proprietary UNIX box (how did I get so old?) - Spydus is firmly in the Windows camp sitting on SQLServer and with client modules that act very much in the manner of the Microsoft Office Suite. It was the only Australian provider.
We then had Innovative Interfaces present, tag team, their core product and a couple of add ons. They worked hard to dispel the 'black box' myths about Millenium, saying that the data was fully accessible through web services. The ability to access functions associated with other modules without having to leave the module you were in was very appealing (eg create a temp bib record while in circulation). Another high point was the fuzzy search that when queried for 'Harry Potter and the Magician's Rock' asked if we meant 'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone'.
The day wrapped up with a group session led by Anne Scott of the University of Canterbury. We got a sense of who was happy to sit with Horizon and tweak HIP, who was looking at a discovery layer over Horizon (which would make the move from Horizon transparent to searchers). We agreed to take HES up on their offer of groupware to give us a space to continue the conversation.
We discussed the possibility of collective bargaining, and while it makes sense to combine our economic 'might' there is little chance we would have identical aims for our resource discovery systems.
A draining but thought provoking three days, well organised, and a much needed crash course in the major ILS options open to us. I look forward talking more about the things it's making me ponder.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Horizon Unconference : where to from here
I'm at the end of day 2 of a three day 'unconference' at the University of Tasmania in chilly Hobart, where a group of Horizon using libraries have sent representatives to talk about what's the next ILS now that it's clear SirsiDynix will not reverse their decision to euthanise Horizon 8.
About 26 libraries are here. University of Tasmania are the organisers and drivers. They had three staff in the USA last year conducting an environmental scan (I'll make Rod Foley's reports available on the intranet - very interesting reading). One thing that strikes you immediately is the difference in resourcing between US and Australian libraries. One University with around the same number EFTSUs as JCU has 185 employees (with 11 dedicated to library IT).
As Di Worth said in opening the unconference, 'we won't come away with the answer' but I already feel that I have a much clearer handle on what the question is. Linda Luther asked the question 'What is an ILS really for?'
The proprietary vendors of ILS are surprisingly few in number (at least those in the University sector) and even more surprising is how old their offerings are; Endeavour is the youngest and first released in 1995. All the products have evolved but you wonder about the core assumptions in their initial design when the most recent was released the same year as Netscape 1.0
Warwick Cathro outlined the NLA's experience with OSS but focused mostly on the directions they are taking in evaluating the multitude of systems they have think about Service Oriented Architectures.
Ex Libris then presented their ILS and product suite and answered questions about migration paths. They stress their position as an innovator and Unified Resource Management (URM) was discussed as their next generation discovery layer.
Then it was off to the library staff room for welcome drinks and nibbles - nice couches well laid out kitchen and servery, and facing an atrium full of barwangs - better laid out than Cairns but doesn't have our view!
Open Source software has been bandied around a bit, Anthony Hornby had a very pragmatic overview of how you should approach Open Source - the same way you approach proprietary software - evaluate for best fit. He dispelled a bunch of myths about OSS, from the wildly evangelical to the demonising (and showed us the little funny below).
Anthony pointed out that even proprietary vendors relied on OSS (e.g. Java), and that we all use it every day (thing blogs like this one, or IM).
We were given overviews of Koha and Evergreen by brave souls who've installed and played with it in test environments (common theme: follow the installation instructions meticulously).
HES then presented, offering the group tools for future collaboration and collective action. JCU participates in HES for a number of systems e.g. our HR system, and we benefit from the negotiated agreement with Oracle.
Next was Serials Solutions, which held little new for me, until Summon got a mention, which is sort a competitor for URM but much closer to implementation. Basically it operates more like Google Scholar in that databases are harvested for metadata, removing federated search's Achille's heel; connection files and retrieval times. SS benefit from being part of the Cambridge Information Group which includes Proquest, Bowker and Ulrich's. Apparently they have an agreement with Thomson Gale to allow harvesting of the databases and many other larger publisher are either on board or soon will be.
SirsiDynix then made their presentation, revolving around Symphony, which looked quite cool. I admire SD staff, they've had so much flack from customers since the Horizon 8 death notice but they are still cheerfully plugging away. The word going around is that SD are focusing on the international market, and rumour says that's because the customer response to H8's death in the US was so vitriolic - but it might also have something to with it's ability to handle unicode making it usable in Asia.
Softlink (Liberty) then presented - they chiefly work in the specials and small publics sector and don't have any university customers in Australia.
The breaks are full of conversations between people asking each other 'what are you going to do?'
Friday we have LibaryThing, DA, Civica and Innovative Interfaces, before another all in library only session to finish up.
Most of the powerpoints will be made available, and I will be writing a more detailed report after cogitating a bit. I think this is a good time to think about our ILS as we are thinking a lot right now about how we do resource discovery with the CMS and 360 Search being launched in the last week and a bit of January (my blonde tips are getting bigger).
Another thing Anthony Hornby had in his powerpoint really tickled me - I think I'll make it my family crest:
About 26 libraries are here. University of Tasmania are the organisers and drivers. They had three staff in the USA last year conducting an environmental scan (I'll make Rod Foley's reports available on the intranet - very interesting reading). One thing that strikes you immediately is the difference in resourcing between US and Australian libraries. One University with around the same number EFTSUs as JCU has 185 employees (with 11 dedicated to library IT).
As Di Worth said in opening the unconference, 'we won't come away with the answer' but I already feel that I have a much clearer handle on what the question is. Linda Luther asked the question 'What is an ILS really for?'
The proprietary vendors of ILS are surprisingly few in number (at least those in the University sector) and even more surprising is how old their offerings are; Endeavour is the youngest and first released in 1995. All the products have evolved but you wonder about the core assumptions in their initial design when the most recent was released the same year as Netscape 1.0
Warwick Cathro outlined the NLA's experience with OSS but focused mostly on the directions they are taking in evaluating the multitude of systems they have think about Service Oriented Architectures.
Ex Libris then presented their ILS and product suite and answered questions about migration paths. They stress their position as an innovator and Unified Resource Management (URM) was discussed as their next generation discovery layer.
Then it was off to the library staff room for welcome drinks and nibbles - nice couches well laid out kitchen and servery, and facing an atrium full of barwangs - better laid out than Cairns but doesn't have our view!
Open Source software has been bandied around a bit, Anthony Hornby had a very pragmatic overview of how you should approach Open Source - the same way you approach proprietary software - evaluate for best fit. He dispelled a bunch of myths about OSS, from the wildly evangelical to the demonising (and showed us the little funny below).
Anthony pointed out that even proprietary vendors relied on OSS (e.g. Java), and that we all use it every day (thing blogs like this one, or IM).
We were given overviews of Koha and Evergreen by brave souls who've installed and played with it in test environments (common theme: follow the installation instructions meticulously).
HES then presented, offering the group tools for future collaboration and collective action. JCU participates in HES for a number of systems e.g. our HR system, and we benefit from the negotiated agreement with Oracle.
Next was Serials Solutions, which held little new for me, until Summon got a mention, which is sort a competitor for URM but much closer to implementation. Basically it operates more like Google Scholar in that databases are harvested for metadata, removing federated search's Achille's heel; connection files and retrieval times. SS benefit from being part of the Cambridge Information Group which includes Proquest, Bowker and Ulrich's. Apparently they have an agreement with Thomson Gale to allow harvesting of the databases and many other larger publisher are either on board or soon will be.
SirsiDynix then made their presentation, revolving around Symphony, which looked quite cool. I admire SD staff, they've had so much flack from customers since the Horizon 8 death notice but they are still cheerfully plugging away. The word going around is that SD are focusing on the international market, and rumour says that's because the customer response to H8's death in the US was so vitriolic - but it might also have something to with it's ability to handle unicode making it usable in Asia.
Softlink (Liberty) then presented - they chiefly work in the specials and small publics sector and don't have any university customers in Australia.
The breaks are full of conversations between people asking each other 'what are you going to do?'
Friday we have LibaryThing, DA, Civica and Innovative Interfaces, before another all in library only session to finish up.
Most of the powerpoints will be made available, and I will be writing a more detailed report after cogitating a bit. I think this is a good time to think about our ILS as we are thinking a lot right now about how we do resource discovery with the CMS and 360 Search being launched in the last week and a bit of January (my blonde tips are getting bigger).
Another thing Anthony Hornby had in his powerpoint really tickled me - I think I'll make it my family crest:
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Introduction to Link Resolvers
What is a link resolver?
Jargon words italicised and explained below.A link resolver is a piece of server software that translates an OpenURL request from source into a URL that will retrieve an item from a specific target.
Jargon
OpenURL
Is a standard way of representing citation-type information as a URL (OpenURL entry on wikipedia) e.g.http://resolver.example.edu/cgi?genre=book&isbn=0836218310&title=The+Far+Side+Gallery+3The first part (http://resolver.example.edu/cgi?) is the link resolver's base URL and the rest conforms to the OpenURL standard (version 0.1 in this case, there is also a version 1.0 which is much more sophisticated).
Source
A source has two features it contains citation information (i.e. metadata about a bibliographic item) and it has the ability to create an OpenURL by appending the citation information (in OpenURL form) to the base URL of a link resolver.URL
Uniform Resource Locater, or as we commonly say 'a web address'.Target
A target is a web server that stores bibliographic items (preferably full text). Good targets allow you to 'deep link' to specific items like journal articles or conference papers. Bad targets only allow you to deep link to the journal's home page or conference proceedings' home page - some targets are so bad they don't even allow that level of linking (Westlaw springs to mind).OK, So What's a Link Resolver do again?
The Link Resolver gets an OpenURL for an item from a source, checks to see which targets we have access to can provide that item then creates a URL that deep links to that item. So effectively if you find a citation for an article in a source you can click on the OpenURL and the link resolver will check all your e-subscriptions and display the article, even if the source is purely an indexing and abstracting database with no full text component.Sounds Cool, can we get one?
Actually we've had one since 2004 - which you might know as the 'Find It' button. For four years our Link Resolver software has been SFX. We are now transferring to some new software called 360 Link. Fundamentally nothing changes (except we expect the new software to be much more accurate in searching our e-subscriptions).Is a Link Resolver good for anything else?
I'm glad you asked. It can accept a request from anything that can generate an OpenURL. Apart from our databases Citation Linker can create an OpenURL from the citation details you provide.EndNote (thanks Nicole) can also pass OpenURL to our Link Resolver, so that clicking on OpenURL for a citation will search our e-subs and display the item. Zotero and other bib/ref tools can also pass OpenURLs to your Link Resolver.
COinS, a way of marking up citations on a web page so that browsers with COinS-enabled plugins can determine the address of the user's link resolver and create an OpenURL for it.
What's really cool about OpenURLs is they bypass broken links caused by deeplinking via a static URL. For example, consider that in Reserve Online we deep link to course readings. What happens when we transfer the subscription to another publisher, or the publisher updates their site, or they are swallowed by another publisher (like Wiley's acquisition of Blackwells journals last year)? The links break, and Document Services staff have to detect the broken links, find new ones, and change the data in Masterfile. If we used OpenURLs instead it wouldn't matter if the links changed - and if we had multiple subscriptions and the prime one didn't work there would be options to try the others.
And lecturers could use it to create persistent links from citations in reading lists in Blackboard directly to the item. I even created a simple OpenURL creation tool build an OpenURL from a citation on JustUs, which is currently using SFX but I will change to 360 Link soon. In any case 360 Link has a function on its 'more information' screen that will show you the relevant OpenURL for the item you requested.
Let me know if this was useful to you, or if it was too simple or too complex.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Deep Linking to a section of a Youtube Video
Here's a clever little trick to pass on to students and staff who want to show a section of a YouTube video without streaming the entire thing.
Just append the to URL #t=XmYs where X is how many minutes into the video and Y is how many seconds. These values are displayed at the bottom right of the YouTube video player's toolbar if you want to get exact timings.For example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vahx4rAd0N0#t=1m5s
Starts the clip at the 1 minute 5 second mark (actually it starts about 2 seconds earlier in practice). Note in the screen shot that the red line that tracks the progress of the stream doesn't start from the beginning of the video but from your nominated start point.
Saves you the embarrassment of a slow download and irrelevant lead material.
More from the YouTube blog
Cloud Computing
Had a chance to see Kent Adams' (Director IT&R) dry run of his presentation on cloud computing on Wednesday.
Read the Wikipedia entry on cloud computing
It's also referred to as SaaS (Software as a Service), I'm sure it used to be called Application Service Provision (ASP) and before that 'thin client computing' (and even before that mainframe/dumb terminal) but I'm showing my age.
Basically a few players (notably Microsoft and Google) are offering to host services (from email to the Office suite) at prices significantly less than we can provide them for and arguably with a lot more utility. They do this by the sheer economies of scale and a massively distributed network of datacentres/servers. If ITR did move to that model of service provision they would remove themselves from the Sisyphean cycle of hardware and network upgrades, backup and maintenance tasks, the impossibility of meeting increasing user expectations, and a significant user support burden.
Potential downsides include:
Kent noted that we already are using this model for some services, SpendVision and Serials Solutions are examples.
Kent wasn't presenting it as a fait accompli but it was certainly worthy of consideration. Very cool to see our IT people take the possibilities seriously.
Bought the T-Shirt? See the movie. A 6 minute intro to cloud computing - clear and simple:
Read the Wikipedia entry on cloud computing
It's also referred to as SaaS (Software as a Service), I'm sure it used to be called Application Service Provision (ASP) and before that 'thin client computing' (and even before that mainframe/dumb terminal) but I'm showing my age.
Basically a few players (notably Microsoft and Google) are offering to host services (from email to the Office suite) at prices significantly less than we can provide them for and arguably with a lot more utility. They do this by the sheer economies of scale and a massively distributed network of datacentres/servers. If ITR did move to that model of service provision they would remove themselves from the Sisyphean cycle of hardware and network upgrades, backup and maintenance tasks, the impossibility of meeting increasing user expectations, and a significant user support burden.
Potential downsides include:
- our internet connection becomes crucial in IT service delivery
- that the price today may not be the price tomorrow (Kent quoted Scott McNealy's take "the first heroin fix is free")
- the loss of control particularly over security and privacy
- tapping into a the resources of these giants (Kent was clearly impressed that Google had 350 software engineers IN AUSTRALIA ALONE - so am I)
- proven reliability - can you remember Google being down?
- having access the constant improvements and additional products that are developed on behalf of all customers
- not having to deal with the I: drive, students having gigabytes of storage they can access the same way from anywhere
Kent noted that we already are using this model for some services, SpendVision and Serials Solutions are examples.
Kent wasn't presenting it as a fait accompli but it was certainly worthy of consideration. Very cool to see our IT people take the possibilities seriously.
Bought the T-Shirt? See the movie. A 6 minute intro to cloud computing - clear and simple:
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Drowning in the Possibilities
I've been prepping for the Professional Development Day (Library 2.0) in Townsville in November and for the Library Planning Days (Rethinking the Virtual Library) the week after and all the reading is making my head feel like a glass of dirty water - I'm just waiting for the sediment to settle.
If I was a tag cloud the big words would be: usability, information architecture, EBL, and user-centric design.
The CMS project rumbles along in the background and the ninjas are currently working on removing references to pages on the old site. There are still publishing issues which are proving difficult to track down. Remember that my monthly reports are on the Intranet as are all the managers' reports and the management committee minutes.
What I've Been Reading
Google Reaches Settlement with Publishers on Google Book Search"Three years ago, the Authors Guild, the Association of American Publishers and a handful of authors and publishers filed a class action lawsuit against Google Book Search.
Today we're delighted to announce that we've settled that lawsuit and will be working closely with these industry partners to bring even more of the world's books online. Together we'll accomplish far more than any of us could have individually, to the enduring benefit of authors, publishers, researchers and readers alike.
It will take some time for this agreement to be approved and finalized by the Court. For now, here's a peek at the changes we hope you'll soon see."
Of course there is no indication what this means for the theworld outside United States borders. Nor do I see how the plaintiffs can make an agreement on behalf of publishers and authors who are not domiciled or citizens of the US.
What if Google did go broke? Where would all that scanned data go? The answer is Hathi.
Jarvis, Jeff. Let's junk the myths and celebrate what we've got. The Guardian, September 29, 2008.
"It never fails. I'll be talking with a group about the amazing opportunities of the internet age and inevitably someone will pipe up and say, 'Yes, but there are inaccuracies on the internet.' And: 'There are no standards there.' ...There the conversation stalls....Once and for all, I'd like to respond to these fears and complaints."
"Reinforcing its place in the scientific community, the arXiv repository at Cornell University Library reached a new milestone in October 2008: Half a million e-print postings -- research articles published online -- now reside in arXiv, which is free and available to the public."
http://arxiv.org/
Bibliographic Software Wars? EndNote vs Zotero/Thomson Reuters vs George Mason University Proprietary data formats in an OpenSource world
Nature reports on the $10 million lawsuit Thomson Reuters (makers of Endnote) have filed against George Mason University (GMU), the birthplace of Zotero (the Firefox plugin that "allows researchers to share their digital information, iTunes style, whether it is in the form of ciations, documents or web pages.
The article discusses the case and the wider implication it has - what if OpenOffice can no longer save or open documents stored in Microsoft's proprietary format?
The ECAR study of undergraduate students and information technology, 2008
This 2008 ECAR research study is a longitudinal extension of the 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007 ECAR studies of students and information technology. The study is based on quantitative data from a spring 2008 survey of 27,317 freshmen and seniors at 90 four-year institutions and eight two-year institutions; student focus groups that included input from 75 students at four institutions; and analysis of qualitative data from 5,877 written responses to open-ended questions. In addition to studying student ownership, experience, behaviors, preferences, and skills with respect to information technologies, the 2008 study also includes a special focus on student participation in social networking sites.Released in time for the Educause meeting, I'm very interested to hear what Heather has to report back - hopefully we'll get a taster at the Professional Development Day.
Express printer solves problem of out-of-print textbooks
Kate Elder passed this one on - but what an eminently cool idea. Books printed at point of need, no overruns being pulped by the pallet load. No global shipments of books by freight, reducing the publishing industries carbon footprint.
No Brief Candle: Reconceiving Research Libraries for the 21st Century
PDF free, print version available for a fee.
How should we be rethinking the research library in a swiftly changing information landscape?
In February 2008, CLIR convened 25 leading librarians, publishers, faculty members, and information technology specialists to consider this question. Participants discussed the challenges and opportunities that libraries are likely to face in the next five to ten years, and how changes in scholarly communication will affect the future library. Essays by eight of the participants—Paul Courant, Andrew Dillon, Rick Luce, Stephen Nichols, Daphnée Rentfrow, Abby Smith, Kate Wittenberg, and Lee Zia—were circulated to participants in advance and provided background for the conversation. This report contains these background essays as well as a summary of the meeting.
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