Time/Place

Time: 12:00pm Eastern Time (US)

Please see the calendar invite for the Zoom link.

Attendees

Tammy Allgood Wolf
Melissa Anez
Chris Awre
Thomas Bernhart
Danny Bernstein
Robert Cartolano
~~Sayeed Choudhury~~ (Aaron Birkland will represent JHU)
Stefano Cossu
Dan Coughlin
Jon Dunn
Dan Field
Raman Ganguly
Jennifer Gilbert
Babak Hamidzadeh
Neil Jefferies
Mark Jordan
Danny Lamb
Rosalyn Metz
Este Pope
Scott Prater
Robin Ruggaber
Tim Shearer
Andrew Woods
Dustin Slater
Jennifer Vinopal
David Wilcox
Wei Xuan
Maurice York
Laurie Arp
Robert Miller

Agenda

Topic	Lead
Financial Update (10 minutes) The end of year Financial Statement for FY19-20 for Fedora (July 1, 2019-June 30, 2020) is available as an email attachment. Overall we were positive to budget by $ 55,719. This was more than anticipated due to several variances. Positive variances include $ 20,700 in additional membership dues $ 20,060 underspent in travel due to pandemic $ 2,409 in interest Miscellaneous service provider fees, supplies, services, IDC Negative variances include $ 20,932 in salaries and benefit – leadership approved this variance to increase Danny Bernstein’s time to 100% for the last several months of the fiscal year to accelerate Fedora 6 development $ 8,133 in meeting expenses - these were related to the Islandora and Fedora Camp and were planned for but not included in the original budget Overall net assets (retained and current) are now $ 109,991 Goal: Review the financial statement for FY19-20, provide opportunity for questions.	Laurie
IMLS Fedora Migration Grant Announcement (15 minutes) $249,859 over 18 months (September 2020 - February 2022) We will develop, pilot, and document migration tools and paths to upgrade Fedora 3 to Fedora 6. The community identified migration tools and documentation during a planning project as important resources to support Fedora 3 upgrade and migration processes, which are necessary to sustain repositories that provide critical access to digital collections. Pilot migrations will be conducted and documented for two Fedora 3 repositories; a toolkit then will be shared through training programs to support broad community adoption. Goal: Review the planned work, increase awareness, provide opportunity for questions.	David
IMLS Grant Impacts (20 minutes) The FY2021 Fedora budget assumed a 15% reduction in membership revenues relative to FY2020 for a total of ~$66,000. So far we have surpassed that estimate with ~$92,000 in net losses. However, we also received the IMLS Fedora migration grant, which pays for 50% of David’s time over 18 months (September 2020 - February 2022). However we will need to reduce some activities David normally performs so that we can accomplish day to day operation of Fedora. See Program Leadership Activities Document Goal: Review current financial forecast and agree on how to manage staff allocations during the grant period.	Rosalyn
Assessing Different Funding Models (30 minutes) The current membership funding model for Fedora (and other open source programs) is proving to be unsustainable, so we need to discuss the viability of different approaches. Goal: Break into small groups to discuss the proposals and make note of the benefits and drawbacks, as well as any suggestions for improving the models.	David
Strategic Subgroup Reports and Next Steps (30 minutes) Goal: Agreement on priorities for each subgroup	David Rosalyn Este
Wrap-up	David

Previous Action Items

Notes

Financial Update

Report shared in advance; main points in the agenda above. We are at end of fiscal year.

IMLS Fedora Migration Grant Announcement

Previous IMLS grant (last year) examined barriers to migration. One clear takeaway: migration is difficult, requiring a lot of effort, but the value proposition wasn't clear. To bring the community forward, the value proposition needs to go up and the work needed to migrate must to go down. Users don't just want tools; the want examples, pathways, pilots to follow.

Phase one: work with two pilots institutions. One a custom Fedora, and then an Islandora institution (fairly standard and representative). Goal is not just migration, but to create documentation and guides which can be shared.

Phase two: taking the toolkit produced by the first phase, sharing it more broadly, and improving it.

Phase three: (dependant on COVID): hold a migration camp, with funded migrations. Could be online if face-to-face events are still hazardous.

IMLS Grant Impacts

We have surpassed the projected budget deficit, but the IMLS grant pays for 50% of David's time, so we don't need to dip into net assets to cover the shortfall.

BUT- this will be a 50% reduction in David's time for other activities. Which duties will David no longer be able to perform, or will perform less? How will these tasks be managed? Program Leadership Activities Document outlines a list of tasks and suggests areas where the Chair and Chair-Elect can help to fill in gaps. Fedora Governance Sub-Group could help with election organization, but David will still need to run the form to preserve election confidentially.

Community engagement: Este, Rosalyn, and David ran a membership forum this year. Afterwards, they handled a number of follow up communications, which dovetails well with the membership work section of the list. Having doen one meeting, repeat meetings will be easier. The work may not be done as David would have done it, but the grant will also have outreach aspects.

Conference proposals and presentations: can be directed to Steering, with leadership ooped in as needed. The grant will also feed into conferences.

This should reduce the work reasonably, but we will need to evaluate how well it's working. Communication to the community about David's re-allocation of time could help as well, to manage expectations.

Can we front-load David's time now on communication, ahead of his time reduction, especially as regards Fedora 6 messaging?

David has already started work on the grant, which officially starts in September.

Is there an opportunity to bring in a different staff member on reduced time, using the budget freed-up by the grant?

Laurie is working through the numbers for this.

Action Items