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!

Where we are: November 10

Here’s a brief summary of activities to bring us up to today:

  • Beginning September 2015, The 3C Project Team Leads (Abigail, Bob, Elisa, and Sarah) were charged by our respective Library Directors to begin a planning and discovery process that will lead to an eventual collaborative implementation of the Islandora digital repository system. This system will provide the infrastructure for a 3C shared digital library program. Our timeline for this planning process is roughly October 2015 to April 2016, and is being referred to as “Phase 1.”
  • “Phase 1” will result in a comprehensive planning document that will be used to move 3C into two further phases of implementation of Islandora and shape a lot of the details–things like where the system will be installed/hosted, what particular features it will have, how it will be supported between the schools, and what the beginning of a shared digital library initiative might really look like in real life.
  • 3C has contracted with Common Media to help us in the process of gathering requirements and needs across the three campuses in order to successfully plan the technical implementation of the system.
  • Concurrently, the 3C group is working on internal administrative items, namely a governance roadmap, that will inform how the repository will be managed and developed collaboratively.
  • Additional work is underway to collect information about our respective metadata schema and management; we are also gathering specific stakeholder and user feedback to inform a larger picture for system functionality. Deeper technical surveys/requirements will be undertaken in December and into January.
  • The 3C Project Team meets f2f every other week to work through our Phase 1 backlog and tasks. The wider group of 3C staff involved in the project holds a virtual stand-up meeting every Monday with a Common Media Project Manager to ensure optimum communication between contractor/client, and monthly meetings between the 3C Project Team Leads and Common Media staff are also on the books.
  • Virtual contact among the project participants is powered by Slack, Google Docs/Drive, and Teamwork.

We plan to make use of this blog to provide general updates on our progress and provide additional information about the project as it develops. Please feel free to contact us by using the form at the bottom of the page!