January 15, 2016, 1 PM EST

Attendees

Steering Group Members

Paul Albert, Jon Corson-Rikert , Melissa Haendel, Kristi Holmes,  Dean B. Krafft, Robert H. McDonald, Eric Meeks, Andi Ogier, Bart Ragon, Julia Trimmer, Alex Viggio

= note taker

Ex officio

Graham Triggs, Mike Conlon, Jonathan Markow, debra hanken kurtz

Regrets

Dial-In Number:  (712) 775-7035; 989199  Local country dial-in codes

Agenda

Notes

1. Updates
   1. Discussion with Simon Porter and Martin Szomszor regarding using the GRID data in VIVO.  How to map the GRID Data to VIVO RDF.  To contribute corrections or additions to Grid see the the grid web site at http://grid.ac
   2. Dean and Mike met with Beth Noveck regarding her continuing interest in VIVO for expertise in support of democracy.
   3. Duraspace has a new WebEx capability that will be used for VIVO meetings.  Mike Conlon can set up meetings.  We will try it for the Steering Group meeting next week (Jan 22).  The plan is to use the new WebEx for all VIVO meetings – Interest Groups, Steering and Leadership.  Conference will continue to run on Duke's WebEx.
   4. Force11 call for proposals ends today.  Registration is now open. See https://www.force11.org/meetings/force2016
   5. Follow up on communications.  The December Duraspace Digest did not have VIVO content.  Content for the Digest comes directly from the blog.  There were no VIVO blog posts in December.  Mike Conlon will redouble efforts to ensure posts in every month, and Carol will check that there is content from every project in each digest
   6. Development call Thursday drew 19 people.  Graham presented repository organization for Maven.
   7. Mike proposes that twice a year when we have a Leadership Group call, we don't also have a Steering call the same day – complicates agendas and logistics
2. Review agenda
3. ResearchConnection
   1. Mike contacted by a startup company in NYC that found VIVO – has a vision in distributing information, not producing it, about scholarship on the web -
   2. VIVO and the kind of data VIVO is creating is exactly what they're looking for
   3. Pitched the use case of people applying to grad school looking for mentors; have other use cases
   4. Seems reasonable as having utility as a use case, at least for some disciplines at some schools – some schools recruit, others take applications
      1. Admission typically done at the department and program level
      2. For the applicant to have
   5. Has shared the Florida data with ResearchConnection and had it integrated into their site within a week – they were pleased that they could consume the data that easily
      1. Now featured on the site – not a particularly exciting display, but they will do more
   6. Could they eventually be sponsors of the conference or VIVO itself
   7. UCSF is another site – Eric has also made data available to them
      1. The only university they have, that is not using Profiles or VIVO is Binghamton (where they originated)
   8. Jonathan Markow has also been approached by their CEO – can begin to feel out whether they have interest
   9. Duke just talked with them this week and are really leaning towards joining, as well
      1. Also thinking of approaching them for sponsoring the VIVO conference, even at a low level
      2. They seemed interested in attending the conference this summer
   10. Could also ask them about their business model
4. Leadership elections
   1. By charter, gold and silver members are entitled to 4 seats (2 and 2)
   2. Since we have 3 gold and 1 silver members, Mike suggests we not hold an election for 2016 at that level and seat all 4, with the understanding that this is a solution for one year only
   3. 1. Will explain this briefly on the Leadership call today so it's not a surprise
      2. Next year we hope to have additional gold and silver members, and expect the normal election procedure to come into play at that time
   4. At bronze, there is 1 representative amongst the (currently) 5 members
      1. Currently represented by Chris Shaffer at Oregon Health and Science University
      2. That group could individually and/or collectively decide whether to nominate additional nominees from among their community representatives – and then see whether an election is needed if there's more than one candidate
   5. Charter says all the Leadership members would vote on all nominees, but DuraSpace practice has been that only the members at each level vote, with the entire group voting only in the case of ties (e.g., 5 nominees from bronze, each with one vote)
   6. No questions or disagreements – Mike will modify the document
5. Membership
   1. See document in agenda above for a list of current members and their levels of contribution
   2. Have talked at length at DuraSpace about what to do
   3. Will start by improving the contact information – it's not bad for current members, but the information on non-members is out of date, incomplete, and requires a lot of effort
   4. VIVO had been off cycle from other DuraSpace projects so had not been taking advantage of the devotion of DuraSpace staff to the task
      1. We will be moving the memberships one by one to the normal cycle as members renew or join – to the fiscal year vs. calendar
      2. If members need to be off cycle for budget reasons, we can handle one-offs as renewals, but it has not been a good fit with DuraSpace practice to run a campaign 12 months a year
   5. We lost a number of members over the past year, in part because of learning the renewal process and understanding the role of the Project Lead in the renewal process
      1. It's natural for some members to downgrade – as projects either settle into routine or sometimes stop
      2. VIVO is unusual, we get more dollars per member, but it would be healthier to have more members and a more diverse group of members, including at each level
      3. We have been relying heavily on our platinum members, and when we lose one it's a big hit
      4. Platinum members are much more likely to reconsider their platinum membership – the commitment is seen by the members as startup funding, often for a maximum of 3 years
         1. They may feel they've done their part in the startup process, and tend to downgrade
      5. Bronze members, in contrast, tend to renew at the same level ongoingly
   6. So our membership projections have to include planning for some downgrading of levels
   7. We need leads from this group – universities just picking up VIVO
   8. Needs names of new institutions and additional and possibly better contact names at any institution.  In particular, decision makers at each institution.
   9. Will go over the prospect lists on a future call
   10. With the conference in Denver, there is not as high a density of universities as on the east coast, but there is a Rocky Mountain west consortium – should we focus on schools in the region with a webinar or other targeted marketing based on what CU Boulder, New Mexico, and Idaho are doing?
       1. Earlier in the Boulder VIVO effort,there was interest in getting all the Colorado schools involved (e.g., CSU, Colorado College, etc) – would be happy to participate, and could come out if it would be helpful
   11. We have to identify the prospects and know who is capable of being a member – e.g., some evidence of participation in open source projects and having put money into such projects already, and members in other open source efforts
6. VIVO "point person" at each site
   1. In looking at the DuraSpace practices and how the membership drives are run for Fedora and DSpace, it became pretty clear that DuraSpace has the concept of a community liaison – essentially a voting member
      1. e.g., some specific person at each institution – one person, who is the person who casts the vote in Steering or Leadership elections
   2. The community liaison role does not carry with it any other responsibility all the time
      1. Could be liaison and not be on Steering or Leadership or on any of the lists
      2. That's not enough for us to know in our CRM
      3. e.g., who do we know at Thomson Reuters – find we know about 10 people all related to open source, DuraSpace, VIVO and/or other projects
      4. Other places we know very little about anyone (e.g., East Carolina)
   3. VIVO is not necessarily a library thing – can be, but often isn't
      1. Tried to identify the responsible executive at each institution – the person who gets called when something is amiss at a reasonably serious level – the roll-up
      2. Not always easy to identify that person
      3. DuraSpace tends to always know who the library director is – based on experience in other projects
         1. Then tend to use the library director as the person to approach to get the lay of the land at the University
         2. Can't always rely on that – Northwestern's library is split the way Cornell's is
         3. We need to know who the responsible person is, and can't assume it's always the library director
            1. Could be the Provost's Office
            2. Or at UF is the CTSA – David Nelson, who assigns Chris Barnes to manage VIVO, not Ed Neu (user and evaluator) who's listed as the community liaison and casts the vote
      4. So we need to know as much as we can about the people involved at each site – if possible, who the responsible executive is, and not just the community liaison
         
         1. The person who takes the call from the newspaper if something goes wrong
      5. And we need to know under what circumstances would we ever contact that person – that person may not want to be contacted by DuraSpace and may not be involved in the membership, especially on an everyday basis
   4. Mike will be sending out to Steering requests for more information that any of us may have, so we can refine the contact list and contact the right people at each organization
      1. A lot of work but a clear path
      2. Start with the current list, and review it as a group activity – using the community aspect and our professional circles
   5. it is possible to have notations about people in the contact list, containing some of the nuances often needed in approaching these people in a reasonable way
      1. We are in the relationship business – use the best information we can get to make the best contact we can, as a community activity
   6. Using Zoho by DuraSpace staff only – but can extract data to spreadsheets to share and then feed data back in
      1. will extract data in small chunks and circulate it within this group for updates and/or supplemental info
   7. What should we call the concept? The responsible executive? Responsible administrator? Note: Duraspace settled on Campaign Role: VIVO Decision Maker
      
      1. Plus that person may be different from the primary contact, or the community liaison
      2. 3 roles that may be occupied by between 1 and 3 people
         
         1. The community liaison – the person who votes but may not be on the firing line
         2. The primary contact – person to contact to find out what's going on, who may not have executive authority or be the person designated to vote
         3. The responsible executive (who may not have an executive title)
      3. If the institution can't answer the question, that's at risk
7. Future topics

Action Items