Category Archives: Phase I

Where we are: February 9

No, you didn’t miss a post– it’s been awhile since we have updated the site! Lots has been happening, here’s the latest on the project:

  • We reached a number of milestones in early January and wrapped up some of the information-gathering exercises requested by Common Media (CM):
    • the User Stories Roadmap
    • a Technical Survey, which outlines the general scope of the IT landscape at each school
    • the Ingest/Workflow Survey, with samples of collection assets and related metadata for review by CM
  • At our face to face meeting with CM on January 15, we discussed the first outcomes of data analysis created from our initial collections, metadata and technical information-gathering efforts, along with some initial scenarios on what the installation of Islandora might look like as a shared application. It was pretty exciting to see some of our ideas and conversations take shape.
  • Out of this meeting, we determined that we needed to share information about user access categories. In other words, who are our users? How might they use the repository? What kinds of categories of access are needed? And how do these categories align (or not) among the 3C? We created an Access Survey which CM will review and merge into the other streams of data and 3C information as they proceed with their report.
  • CM is currently closely examining all of the collected metadata and collections information (from both the Metadata Survey and Ingest/Workflow Survey) from 3C so it can be wrapped into the final report.
  • After struggling for weeks on the Governance Roadmap, the 3C team, in consultation with CM, came to the realization that it’s difficult to make and write up governance decisions when you aren’t entirely sure what it is that needs to be governed (in other words, there’s no there there!). So we’ve decided to roll this important work into the report-writing phase over the next two months.
  • And speaking of the final report: from here on in our work shifts more to an iterative process with CM as the report begins to be written, with less emphasis on surveys and data collection.

On January 25, Members of the 3C team and staff from CM attended a gathering at Williams College in the beautiful new Sawyer Library. Members of the Islandora Consortial Group (ICG), along with representatives from Barnard and Wesleyan, met to discuss ways in which the combined colleges might work together to collaboratively develop functionality for Islandora. It was a wonderful day and we’re all looking forward to continuing the conversation.

Where we are: December 21

Here’s a brief recap of the work over the last couple of weeks:

  • We wrapped up pretty much all of the information gathering needed for the main metadata survey: this is a high-level view of the breakdown of existing collections and metadata scope for each school, in order to give CM (Common Media) a good general sense of what and how much would be ingested into an Islandora implementation.
  • 3C (3 Colleges) staff distributed our user stories survey around each school, but we are still looking for input!
  • CM created a Technical Survey to help gather information about the IT environments at each school; this has been distributed to relevant staff.
  • CM, with input from 3C staff, created an Ingest/Workflow survey that is currently being worked on. This survey, which is basically a next step from the earlier metadata survey described above, is designed to help capture a more detailed view of each collection that will need to be eventually ingested into Islandora (we are referring to it as a cargo manifest document!). It includes data points for specific file formats, locations, sizes, specific metadata and organizational workflow steps, affiliated systems/integration points, and priority.
  • 3C staff are also charged with collecting samples of metadata and related digital files to help represent each collection to CM.

After the holiday break in early January there will be a face to face meeting between 3C leads and CM. All survey work and sample collecting should be done by then, which will allow CM to proceed with putting together the project plan through January and February. Additionally, 3C leads will begin to dig into our governance planning and documentation, which has been, up to now, a challenge to navigate as we worked through other deadlines.

 

 

Where we are: December 4

Our first major set of deliverables for Phase 1 were assembled and reviewed this week with project team partners Common Media. Staff from all three schools have been working to populate survey spreadsheets about our existing metadata and digital content: where it all lives, its current state (e.g.: published or not?), size, location, etc. After a really helpful review of the spreadsheets and discussion at our monthly F2F and then the weekly standup, we all added some more data over the course of the week to round out the overall scope of information.

We also developed and tested out a survey to help us collect user stories about digital libraries. Our goal is to ask our communities and stakeholders (staff, administrators, faculty, students, and others who use or might use our collections) to create very short “stories” that relay user behavior and desired functionality. We found a good example of how to do this by asking users to fill in the blanks: “As a <blank> I want to <blank> so I can <blank>.  Here’s how one user story might look:

“As an archivist, I want to be able to link our digitized letters to the related online finding aid so that I can help researchers access materials without having to travel from far away.

If you want to create your own user stories, please use this form: it’s short and easy and you can do as many as you like! We’d love to have your input or comments.

Next steps include:

  • Gathering samples of our collections content (metadata and digital assets/objects) for analysis by Common Media.
  • Continuing to collect user stories and mapping our governance documentation.
  • Starting up a round technical surveys from each school to help better understand how our technology resources and environments would support any future implementation.

Feel free to contact the team with any questions!