Background

VIVO is a member-supported, open source software platform and an ontology for representing scholarship.  VIVO supports recording, editing, searching, browsing and visualizing scholarly activity. VIVO encourages research discovery, expert finding, and assessment of research impact.

• In 2019, the VIVO Leadership Group (LG) reviewed 38 technical initiatives that had been proposed for VIVO over the previous five years and developed a direction for VIVO development for the next year. 
• Last year’s Product Direction for 2019 statement described the community’s priorities for advancing the VIVO product in 2019 by aligning product evolution, core development, ontology development, and other efforts.
• In 2020, the LG seeks to update this statement to establish priorities for the coming year.

Development Priorities

The following three priorities are proposed for the VIVO Project in 2020. 

1. Lowering barriers to adoption and contribution
   The community will develop tools and workflows for populating a VIVO installation with data as quickly and as easily as possible. Turnkey installation solutions will be provided using container tools such as Vagrant and Docker. Build processes, configuration, and testing will be simplified to encourage adopters to continuously upgrade to the latest version of VIVO. Code repositories and product documentation will be overhauled to better serve both new and long-standing members. Multilingual support will be added to the software and the VIVO ontology, including an internationalized editing interface.
2. Modernizing architecture and administration
   The VIVO stack incorporates a number of different technologies, including a triple store, a document store, several APIs, and user interfaces for administration, data editing, and search. Product development over the next couple of years will focus on modularizing this architecture and improving the underlying technology. Continuing the work of 2019, more VIVO components will be decoupled from the core application, with increased reliance on APIs and a new Vitro messaging system. Decoupled components such as the triple and document stores will be upgraded and delivered in both native and containerized options. Support for improved access control and role management will be added to the core administrative interface. VIVO APIs and the messaging system will be improved and expanded to support increased use.
3. Improving front-end user experience
   The user interface is the most visible component of the VIVO software.  Product development will focus on improving the user-facing sides of the VIVO system. A variety of options are being pursued. Freemarker templates for the existing user interface will be updated, with new user roles and access management. The user editing interface will be built out and internationalized, with multilingual support, and options for claiming publications and other interactions with 3rd-party services. An additional avenue is being pursued. VIVO Scholar is an optional, stand-alone application built on top of VIVO data. Future development will make VIVO Scholar easier to install and customize, encouraging broader adoption.

Guiding Principles for All Work

Guiding principles for these initiatives include:

• Engage the users of VIVO in the development of use cases and requirements.
• Enable sites to use VIVO with or without the modernized presentation technology.
• Preserve compatibility with the VIVO ontology.
• Enable flexibility in the VIVO stack so that modules can be used or swapped as needed.
• Use agile development principles.
• Continue to support previous versions of VIVO.
• Continue to explore open questions together, as a community.