Subject: Guidelines on the Creation and Maintenance of Web Servers and Pages

From: Steve Carson <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Dec 1996 12:19:06 -0700

This is circulated to SC24 for comment back to the SC24 Chair and Secretary
by 24 January 1997:
----
ISO/IEC JTC 1                                                         
Information Technology                                                

ISO/IEC  JTC 1 N 4243                 

DATE:  1996.11.27     

REPLACES                                     

DOC TYPE:
Other document                                                        

TITLE:
Guidelines on the Creation and Maintenance of Web Servers and Pages   

SOURCE:
Document Editor                                                       

PROJECT:                   

STATUS:
This document is circulated to JTC 1 National Bodies for review and   
consideration at the December 1996 JTC 1 Plenary meeting in Paris.    

ACTION ID:  ACT 

DUE DATE:  1996.12.13

DISTRIBUTION:  P and L Members                                             

MEDIUM:  E

DISKETTE NO.:            

NO. OF PAGES:  7         

Secretariat, ISO/IEC JTC 1, American National Standards Institute, 11 
West 42nd Street, New York, NY  10036; Telephone:  1 212 642 4932;    
Facsimile:  1 212 398 0023; Email:  [email-masked]                 

[[ J1N4243.TXT : 3922 in J1N4243.TXT ]][[ J1N4243C.TXT : 3923 in 
J1N4243C.TXT ]]

ITSCG AWG 3 N14 (Rev. 2)
August 1996
Originator: JTC 1 and ITSCG AWG 3 task group

(These guidelines are being developed jointly by ISO/IEC JTC 1 and the
ITSCG.)

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    Guidelines on the creation and maintenance of Web servers and pages

                      Draft version 4.0 (1996-08-21)

1. INTRODUCTION

The 'WEB Industry' and its application is moving at a rapid pace. The WEB
is already serving the needs of many standards organizations (SDOs). Within
the ISO, WEB pages are already up and running. The WEB also facilitates
communication between different standards bodies as we move into new areas
of work such as the Global Information Infrastructure (GII).

It is clear that ISO and its committees, such as JTC1, needs to move fairly
quickly in terms of guidance on the use of the WWW within its organization
in order to gain maximum benefit in terms of efficiency and effectiveness,
and importantly to help portray to the standards community (and public) a
high level of consistency and quality of information content.

A key advantage of the WEB and associated browsing tools is that it is
relatively easy to access and use, and provides a great deal of flexibility
in the way the information is presented and organized. In many respects the
WEB is an 'art form' and the page reflects the owners artistic
characteristics in for example the use of graphics and links to other WEB
sites. However, in a structured organization such as the ISO with its
layers of Technical Committees (TCs), Sub Committees (SCs), and Working
Groups (WGs), some commonality in how the WEB is used and linked would be
desireable. However, at the same time any guidelines to ensure commonality
should not be too restrictive on individuality.

WEB pages may be configured to provide public access to all or part of the
information content. In the standards domain we can envisage structuring
the information into 'public' and 'restricted' components. The public
component can be used to provide general background information, and in
many case serve to support the public relations aspects of the
organization. The restricted component can be reserved for access by those
involved in the standards development process, (using an appropriate
security access system) but it also can include access by subscription to
published standards. These are important considerations in terms of the
sale of standards as a source of revenue. These guidelines follow the ISO
Policy concerning the distribution of ISO documents electronically for the
preparation of standards.

The timeliness of standards is becoming a key 'quality' aspect, and in this
respect WEB pages must be kept upto date both with respect to the public
and restricted components. In addition, WEB page addresses (i.e. Uniform
Resource Location (URL)) must be stable to assure continuity of links
between different pages. Maintenance of pages with respect to both
timeliness of information and link stability is therefore an important
consideration.

The ease in which different formats can be accommodated is also a key
aspect. At the standards development phase many different formats must be
accommodated. As the document reaches completion we are likely to see
increasing use of Standard Generalised Markup Language (SGML) and HyperText
Markup Language (HTML). This is part of the transition scenario.

Although a number of page browsing software packages are available the
Industry is tending towards selection of a small number of these and this
is not likely to become an issue for the ISO.

Although other means of storing and accessing information are and will be
used e.g. FTP servers, the WEB page should be configured to access these
information sources ie the WEB Page will be the gateway to databases!

2. OBJECTIVES

The objective is to provide guidance to the ISO Standards Community on the
creation of 'quality' WEB servers and pages taking into account the need
to: -

  1. Provide a balance between the consistent presentation of information
     on the one hand and enabling flexibility in page format to page
     creators on the other hand.
  2. Take into account the ISO Policy on distribution of ISO Documents
     electronically, and aspects such as privacy.
  3. Ensure the stability and maintenance of appropriate links between
     servers.
  4. Maintain security on certain levels of documents.
  5. Ensure a consistent level of WEB Page quality, given that the WEB will
     provide to the public a window on ISO, its committees such as JTC1 and
     its activities.
  6. Address International and National Committees.

3. SUMMARY OF ISO POLICY ON ELECTRONIC DISTRIBUTION

The current ISO policy concerning the distribution of documents is being
drafted.

4. SECURITY

In order to comply with the ISO policy as described in section 3 above, we
provide some basic guidelines here on the security mechanisms used in Web
servers. The policy requires that certain documents shall not be made
available publicly, but shall be protected via passwords. In order to
comply with the policy, the Basic security scheme that is provided with
most Web server software can be used. At this time of writing (1996-04-17),
the W3C has not yet produced a standard security protocol. Therefore the
Basic scheme can be recommended as the de-facto security protocol.

It should be noted that the Basic scheme, although satisfactory for most
purposes, does not provide the best level of protection. There are other
security protocols in use today such as Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and
Secure-HyperText Transfer Protocol (S-HTTP). SSL was specified by Netscape
and is available in their browsers. As the Netscape Navigator is widely
deployed, SSL is an alternative, more secure scheme to the Basic scheme.
However, it should be noted that not all browsers comply with SSL. Any use
of SSL protection will have consequences for users of non-SSL compliant
browsers. The same comment can be applied to the use of other security
protocols such as S-HTTP.

5. GENERAL PAGE STRUCTURE

Structuring a WEB page is analagous to writing a book, in which although
there are an infinite number of ways of presenting the bulk of the
material, certain basics such as the title, list of contents, introduction,
etc. are laid out in a fairly consistent fashion. These guidelines focus on
the 'consistent' aspects.

   * 5.1 Top page

     This page should contain the title, a brief description of the page
     and a list of topics or contents. This list will enable the reader to
     go directly to that section of the page, e.g.

        o Administrative aspects
        o Draft Documents, Standards, etc.
        o Links to related organizations
        o News items
        o Contact person
        o etc.

     Appendix B contains a sample prototype page

   * 5.2 Use of Graphics

     The use of graphics is encouraged as this generally facilitates
     transfer of information to the reader on committee structures,
     relationships, etc. However, the performance of the Internet, i.e.
     speed of access is very much dependent on the amount of graphical
     information on the page. There are options which can be implemented to
     speed up access in the presence of graphics. Page creation can either
     decrease the number of graphics used on a page or offer text only
     pages with graphics on a separate page(s). The reader can then use the
     browser option which turns off graphic viewing capability.
     Alternatively a thumbnail schematic (including the size of the full
     image file) can be provided with an option to access the full-size
     schematic - time permitting.

   * 5.3 Links

     The use of links from one document to another is the basis on how the
     Web is formed. For the purpose of user-friendliness, documents that
     lead to a "deadend" should be avoided. Since an hierarchy already
     exists in our standards development process (TC, SC, WG), a minimal
     Web structure can already be specified. The following hyperlinks are
     required for each home page.

       1. On the top level (ISO Web) home page
          This page shall provide the hyperlinks to technical committees,
          subcommittees, and working groups.
       2. On the TC home page
          This page shall contain hyperlinks to the home pages of its SCs
          and WGs and to the top level home page.
       3. On the SC home page
          This page shall contain hyperlinks to the home pages of its WGs,
          to the TC home page if one exists, and to the ISO Web home page.
       4. On the WG home page
          This page shall contain hyperlinks to the SC home page if one
          exists, to the TC home page if one exists, and to the ISO Web
          home page.

     Similarly, National Committees should be linked to the National
     Body/Secretariat Page.

     The actual presentation is left to the author of the pages. Please see
     a prototype page, http://www.iso.ch:8080/. It is recommended that
     links are provided at the top of the page to move up in the hierarchy.

6. CHOICE OF LINKS EXTERNAL TO ISO

Given the increasing use of the WEB by other International and Regional
standards organizations, e.g. ITU, ETSI, and forums/consortia, and the need
to facilitate communication between these organizations, it is recommended
that the opportunity is taken of providing links with these other 'home
pages' as appropriate. For example, this would be particularly appropriate
in those cases where a liaison with another standards body, forum or
consortia is in place. However, it is recommended that where such links are
provided, text is provided to make the user aware that the link will access
a site outside of the ISO system.

7. INPUT AND ACCESS OF INFORMATION

   * 7.1 Input formats

     The documents made available on a TC/SC/WG site should conform to the
     ITSCG/JTC 1 guidelines (Ref. ----) on electronic document distribution
     which specifies acceptable formats, encodings, and compression
     software. The use of other formats are acceptable as long as viewers
     for these formats are easily available to public. An example of an
     alternate format is SGML/Panorama as used by JTC 1 SC 18 WG 8.

     All HTML pages on a server should use the latest approved version of
     HTML. The use of browser-specific extensions should be avoided. The
     use of extensions, although quite appealing when viewed using a
     specific browser, may cause problems in other browsers. If
     browser-specific extensions must be used, then alternative pages
     should be supplied that conform to the approved version of HTML.

   * 7.2 Search and Indexing

     A site may want to provide a search function. There are many search
     engines and the recommendation of a single search engine that can run
     on many different platforms is not within the scope of these
     guidelines. In general commercial search engines (Verity, OpenText,
     etc.) provide better performance, support, and functionality. However,
     for those sites on more limited budgets, mention should be made of
     public domain software including WAIS and Harvest. Examples of the use
     of WAIS can be found at ANSI and ISO/CS. A good example of the use of
     the distributed Harvest indexing mechanism can be found at the
     National Research Council of Canada (http://www.nrc.ca/).

8. MAINTENANCE

   * 8.1 URL maintenance

     The maintenance of URLs (Uniform Resource Location) is a
     well-recognized problem. Basically the cause of the problem is the
     prevailing use of URLs as a "location" as well as a "name". If a link
     is "hard-coded" to a particular site and if all documents were moved
     to a different server site, the links to the documents on the original
     server site will die. Note that simply renaming a filename has the
     effect of "moving" a document, hence causing all links to the document
     to be broken.

     There are a number of proposed solutions. If the maintainer of the Web
     pages have access to the Web server configuration files, it is
     possible to provide a new location header that will redirect a browser
     to the new location. This only avoids the problem, however, as the
     links to the old site still remain.

     At this time it is recommended that if links need to be made to other
     sites, then the links should be made to stable pages. These are pages
     that are required to exist on a TC, SC, or WG site. A stable page may
     change content on a regular basis (such as a "latest news" type of
     page), but it is "stable" in that it has been agreed that such a page
     should always be available at a particular site. One can then be
     assured that the link to the page will remain relatively stable. A
     volatile page or document is not required to exist on a site. The
     document may be removed or moved on short notice. If a link needs to
     be made to a volatile page or document on another site, then the
     administrator who is making the link should contact the administrator
     of the volatile page so that in the future if the page is moved or
     removed, the creators of links to the page can be notified.

     In the case when a stable page is moved or removed (for example, the
     whole site may be moved to another server), the e-mail mailing list
     for all server administrators, [email-masked], is provided so
     that anyone who made a link to the page can be notified on the
     changes.

     Examples of stable pages for a TC, SC, or WG site can be defined as
     the following:

        o the home page
        o documents register
        o meeting calendar
        o contacts or address page
        o work programme
        o index page of protected documents
        o ...

     To further reduce the possibility of broken links, it is recommended
     that "link-verifier" software be run occasionally on your site to
     check for broken links. If a broken link to a remote site is found,
     the server administrator of that site should be notified immediately.

     Hopefully in the near future, the problem of maintaining robust links
     will be solved by the use of URI (Uniform Resource Identifier), a
     specification that is currently being developed within the IETF.

   * 8.2 Mirroring

     Originally mirroring was and still is a technique to maintain copies
     of the contents of an FTP server at another FTP site. The usual
     justification for maintaining these additional sites is to optimize
     the use of network resources. Another advantage is that the additional
     sites provide a backup in case the original site is temporarily
     unavailable. Finally it is also possible for one site to mirror many
     servers, providing a central source of data. That site could then be
     easily mirrored to other sites, hence distributing the data. Similiar
     justifications can be applied for HTTP (web) servers.

     Mirroring a Web site, however, is more of a challenge than mirroring
     an FTP site due to the use of hyperlinks in documents. The original
     server administrator must take care of whether or not URLs contain
     complete server addresses. URLs without server addresses (relative
     URLs) are quite often used as a shorthand by server administrators to
     reference documents that are contained on their own server. If a page
     containing relative URLs is mirrored, then all the pages that are
     referenced by the relative URLs must also be mirrored. In addition the
     "directory" structure must be carefully matched.

     Other difficulties occur in mirroring a Web site. For example, it is
     not possible to easily mirror authentication, hence only public pages
     can be mirrored. CGI-scripts and special configurations such as
     server-side includes are also nearly impossible to mirror.

     If a server administrator wishes to mirror another Web site, it is
     recommended that sites should mirror a directory tree. The original
     site administrator should use relative URLs only for documents in the
     directory. Any references to documents outside the directory tree
     should use absolute URLs. URLs that call CGI scripts or point to
     protect pages should always use absolute URLs.

9. REGISTRATION OF SERVERS

All servers are required to be registered both with the ISO Central
Secretariat and with National Bodies at the national level in order to
properly identify a site that truly represents the work of the committee.
This can be done by contacting the Committee Web Sites Administrator (and
National Body) at ... [will most likely provide a Web form and e-mail
address]

After a site is properly identified and registered, a link will be provided
on the TC/SC/WG home page. The mailing list of server administrators will
be updated. An announcement shall be made on the server administrators
mailing list. At this point, other sites are free to make links to the new
site.

APPENDIX A- SAMPLE WEB PAGES

Examples of Web pages following the general page structure are available
from JTC 1 SC 22.

Examples of mirrored pages from JTC 1 SC 24 are available at
http://www.iso.ch:8080/jtc1/sc24/. The original source of the mirrored
pages is http://www.cwi.nl/JTC1SC24/.

Steve Carson
Chair, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC24
Computer Graphics and Image Processing
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Steve Carson                 phone:   +1-505-521-7399
GSC Associates Inc.          fax:     +1-505-521-9321
5272 Redman Road             e-mail:  [email-masked]
Las Cruces, NM 88011 USA
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