The notes below reflect a summary of the March 13 open forum discussion answer the proposed questions.

EDITING IN PROCESS

Wednesday, March 13, morning sessions (cmm)

James Hilton kick-off and presentation

• It is not a crisis or cliff pushing this meeting agenda. It's an opportunity to come together and "Move the needle" towards a future that meets all of our needs.  
• We are at a pivital moment that hangs on (digital) preservation. 
• A 2011 Nobel Prize was awarded for those who noticed that the universe is expanding faster and faster; it is not static. In the far future galaxies that we now see will rush away so fast that we won't be visible anymore. The blackness will infer that nothing else ever existed in the universe except that matter which is immediately in front of and surrounding humans in that distant future. It is our responsibility to ensure that evidence of stars, galaxies and solar systems inform the far future.
• We have an emerging digital preservation stack (see JH slides).
• Where do all these parts and pieces fit together other than around the 20K price tag for support of each?
• No guarantee that any of these layers feed into the rest of the stack (bleed between the layers); institutions may utilize parts and pieces of the stack:
  
  • Access repositories
  • Preservation repositories
  • DPN backbone
  • Code (that includes DSpace and Fedora)
• What do I get for my 20K annual fee? 
  
  • It is an investment in collective/shared capabilities; it's more like thinking about FTEs because that's where you get "capability"

...

Michele and Jonathan Myths and Debunks (see slides)

• "Our Mission is not about software; we are committed to our digital future." MK
• We are here today because we need to work with you and creating sustainable, new investment strategies to reinvigorate DSpace and Fedora developmen
• Fedora needs about a half million dollars per year to move forward toward rapid, cohesive development
• "Each of you owns the Fedora and DSpace code to the degree in which you participate and utilize the open source software. You all own Fedora and DSpace."  JJM
• How does VIVO fit in? (Dean Krafft)
  
  • VIVO has moved from being a grant-supported project into developing a model for sustainability.
  • Large grant from NIH
  • More than 100 institutions piloting VIVO software
  • Signed on as a DuraSpace incubated project because:
    
    • Wanted independent biz administration
    • Wanted help with infrastructure (wiki, code repository)
    • Looking for a model for sponsorship and project support
    • There will be a tech coordinator/lead who will be hired through DuraSpace
  • "VIVO fits into the DuraSpace mission because research institutions like Cornell need to know WHAT the university scholarly output is (that should be preserved)--that's the content that VIVO pulls together." DK

...

• What does the project need to be successful?
  
  • financial contributions
  • developer contributions
  • articulation of requirements
• How to increase engagement with the community?
  
  • new models of funding (membership?)
  • stronger project governance?
  • other forms of communication?

Greatest needs in the community summary:

1) Need a roadmap - need a vision of what DSpace should be in the next 3 to 5 years

• DSpace Committers are busy with bug fixes, releases and reviewing the many contributions – making sure they play well together - don't really have time to focus on the evolution of DSpace architecture and long term road map 

2) Need governance for stakeholders to go along with additional funding and long term roadmap

DSpace Futures 

• Futures discussions came down to three main projects
  hope - hope was that DSpace futures would turn into something like Fedora Futures,  turned into instead seemed to have turned into other smaller functionality projects, not necessarily a roadmap
  
  • REST API
  • DSpace + Hydra
  • Metadata Improvements
  • not very many volunteers so far  
• Fedora folks community may have more developer resources, many DSpace institutions may not have developer resources
  
  

How do we energize the DSpace community?

• Is DSpace a product or project? 
• more of a push to develop a DSpace user community more at conferences - set up BoF at your next conference
• more participation in DCAT and ambassador group
• need specifics to ask for money
• need community to be in charge of what changes need to be made, actionable items and identify people charged with doing it
• have a membershiop model for smaller institutions to fund DSpace improvements 
• tying a deliverable to $$ 

• Fedora 4 will still not be an out-of-the box system until UI is on there

...

• improvements
  
  • maybe different funding model, e.g.,  
    
    • tie requisition to deliverable
    • adoption, patch, upgrade
    • "bill me" size of institution
    • membership depending on size of instutition
• need community to specify what needs to be done - need specifics to ask for development money, tying a specific deliverable to $$
• everyone looking at DuraSpace to create roadmap, but the community needs to lead
• DSpace community

Should DSpace be UI that sits on top of Fedora?

• Fedora 4 will still not be an out-of-the box system, no UI
• should there be a DSpace Hydra head or some other type of Fedora/DSpace integration?
  • DSpace
  • Committers are busy with bug fixes, releases and reviewing the many contributions – making sure they play well together - don't really have time to focus on the evolution of DSpace architecture and long term road map 
  • Started DSpace Future focus groups w/small projects, but still not a long term roadmap
  • should this include Hydra Head or some other type of Fedora integration?
  • not an enterprise system, doesn't scale
  • DSpace-like Hydra head: scholarSphere (PSU) and hydris (Stanford) 
• is it a grant project to merge DSpace with Fedora?
• DuraSpace should scope the project
• need specifics on what needs to be done/how to contribute
• Issues
  • Roadmap
    • includes migration to Fedora 
  • energizing the user community
    • need specifics to ask for development money
    • need community to specify what needs to be done
    • everyone looking at DuraSpace to create roadmap, but DuraSpace wants community to lead
    • DSpace community
      • maybe different funding model, e.g., membership 
        • tie requisition to deliverable
        • adoption, patch, upgrade
      • "bill me"
      • size of institution
bifurcated community

• smaller institutions with limited resources - 
  
  • folks without IT support
  • could hosted DSpaceDirect address this need (SAAS)
other community 

• institutions with needs where they've outgrown DSpace platform
• contemplating exit strategy
need to contribute to reenvision / modify DSpace
DCAT could serve in product-owner role?
• need a steering group

• Governance 
  • Centralized Technical Vision and Technical Leadership
    • how to ensure that features integrate well?
    • need a steering group
  • may need a DSpace Project Director
• Roadmap
  • Scoping project to see if DSpace-on-Fedora is viable
    • DuraSpace should scope (David) 
    • Need "dead-simple" migration path

• David Lewis
  
  • Hosting meeting at ACRL
    
    • MK will be there with project proposal
  • will pass the hat

• Need repository managers involved in strategic vision
• steering group needs mix of technologists, administrators, repository managers

...

DSpace community is bifurcated community

• smaller institutions with limited resources - folks without IT support - could hosted DSpaceDirect address this need (SAAS)
• other community
  • institutions with needs where they've outgrown DSpace platform
  • contemplating exit strategy
  • need to contribute to re-envision / modify DSpace

Governance

• need a steering group
• could DCAT could serve in product-owner role - representing non-sponsors?
• centralized technical vision and technical leadership
  • how to ensure that features integrate well?
  • do we need a project director role - either funded or contributed in-kind by the community

• Roadmap
  • Scoping project to see if DSpace-on-Fedora is viable
    • DuraSpace should scope (David) 
    • Need "dead-simple" migration path

• David Lewis
  
  • Hosting meeting at ACRL
    
    • MK will be there with project proposal
  • will pass the hat

• Need repository managers involved in strategic vision
• steering group needs mix of technologists, administrators, repository managers

not an enterprise system, doesn't scale

VIVO Breakout Session  Mike Conlon, recorder

Attendees: Mike Conlon (UF), Bill Barnett (IU),  Hal Warren (APA), Julia Trimmer (Duke), Mike Bolton (Texas A&M), Dean Krafft (Cornell), Robert McDonald (Indiana), Mike Winkler (Penn), Daniel Calto (Elsevier), Jonathan Breeze (Symplectic), Alex Viggio (Digital Science), Paul Albert (Weill Cornell), Delphine Canno (Temple, by Skype), Andrew Ashton (Brown), Jon Corson-Rikert (Cornell, by video)

Three discussion areas:

1. VIVO Roadmap – Dean Krafft, facilitator
2. VIVO Strategy – Jonathan Markow, Facilitator
3. VIVO Strategy – Bill Barnett, Facilitator

VIVO Roadmap -- Dean Krafft, Facilitator

Vivo 1.6 -- VIVO-ISF, CTSAConnect, Eagle-I, bidirectional API via SPARQL, HTTP caching, search indexing, developer tools, landing page improvements.  1.6.1 running through tests.

If a grant or other sponsor can pay for a specific feature that does not take away from the strategy or roadmap, and gifts back the feature to the vivo core, there is general support.  

A collection of architectural use cases -- VIVO as an engine, an aggregator, an information representation, as data store used for external apps,  Balance use cases in the development road map.

Need for documentation.  Using, installing, adding code.  To build development community -- Internal code needs documentation.  Architecture documents. Development process. On boarding documentation.

Some possible new features:

• Control the rank ordering in search results
• Linked data for libraries will need billion triple scale stores and support for commercial triple stores.
• Internationization.  Labeling.  Or in operation of the software.
• Archival vivo.
• External URIs.
• Ontology editor improvements, application ontology, ISF module support
• Multi-site search
• Vivo linkages 

There will be an annual survey at the Implementation Fest.

How is the roadmap developed?  Users, sponsors, technical. Interaction with grant funded effort.  Community of developers. Balancing allocation.  Sponsors, steering.  Ideas -> proposals -> vetting -> deciding 

Time-based vs feature-based release? Most prefer time-based release.  Easier to plan.  Possibly bi-annual.

Action items

Project Director hire.  Community assessment of desirable features before Austin?  Time at Austin to disucss? Roadmap proposal. Goals: Functioning organization, roadmap development

Governance -- Jonathan Markow, Facilitator

Reviewed the project charter describing governance and membership.

Spending incubation period developing governance and membership.  Founding members are Platinum members with designation as Founders.  Other levels range from bronze at $2500 to Diamond at $30,00. Membership campaign in the spring -- we have a handful of non-founders currently.

Recognize in-kind contributions.  1/2 developer would be same as platinum, on the leadership group.

Steering committee -- Bill, Paul, Dean, Jon, Mike, Kristi, Robert, Jonathan, Project Director.  Should be elected by the leadership group.

Leadership group -- platinum and above.  Elect the steering group. Clarify the role of the leadership group regarding strategy, budget.  Intended to function as a board.

Project members -- submit requests, vote for two at large leadership group members

Work groups – largely volunteer effort with focus on an aspect of VIVO – implementation, core development, apps & tools, ontology, outreach

Duraspace – shepard the development of all things VIVO – software, community, process

Use cases for governance.  How do we create a roadmap?  How do we develop a strategic plan?  How do we develop and approve a budget? Allocate resources?  How (when/process) do we name the steering committee?  

Input rights -- bronze and silver

Decision rights -- platinum and diamond

Project members at the bronze level.  Consortia membership is possible to encourage participation outside the US. Learn from other projects and Duraspace.

VIVO Strategy -- Bill Barnett, Facilitator

VIVO business model -- membership, committed people, project director, Duraspace, alignment with institutuonal interests.

Kernel, application, ontology, applications

Community

What is our business?  competitors?  Public, shareable, Machine consumable, human attribute storage.  With lineage, trust. Create and Share data about scholarly work.

Alliances.  People who create and share scholarly work.  We're not in the publishing business, nor administrative function, nor repository businesses.

The concept of VIVO data and promoting the production of VIVO data by any means.

Spurring adoption --early adopters, secondary messaging, early middle (value propositions), late middle (everyone else is doing it, compliance). Enabling implementation, changing the ROI. Having usage and implementation stories at various scales.