Tag: Steering Group

Orbital is go! (Team meeting notes 24-11-2011)

Paul Stainthorp / / Meetings

Attending: Nick Jackson, Annalisa Jones, Bev Jones, Chris Leach, Paul Stainthorp, Joss Winn

Apologies: Lee Mitchell, David Young

Agenda

  1. Review Project Plan and Workpackages
  2. Status updates: Literature Review, User Requirements Analysis, Technology/Standards evaluation
  3. Forthcoming meetings and conferences (Agile method, Open Source policy, ERIM, Engineers, OR12, DCC, Start-up)
  4. Poster, papers, website
  5. Staffing and accommodation
  6. AOB

Notes

Joss Winn (JW) reported in detail:

  • JW reported on the work done to date (mostly relating to workpackage WP1), and reported back on:
    • The successful first meeting with users from the School of Engineering
    • The first Steering Group meeting on 3 November
    • The submission of the project plan
    • The appointment of NJ as lead developer
    • The relocation of NJ and PS (part-time) to CERD’s offices to work on Orbital
  • JW ran through the project outputs and workpackages in detail, identifying deadlines – most notably the Implementation Plan, which must be submitted by February 2012, with the following four pieces of work completed by then:
    • Data sources (NJ/CL)
    • User requirements (NJ)
    • Literature review (PS/BJ/CL)
    • Technical review (NJ/JW)
  • The group discussed the further user-engagement work to be completed in workpackages WP5, including Nick Jackson’s work with the School of Engineering to assess their requirements (through workshops, questionnaires, observation, and use of the Data Asset Framework – DAF), and on a planned round-table meeting about ERIM in late January
  • ACTION (NJ): dates needs to be set for user requirements exercises.
  • ACTION (PS): Date in late January needs to be set for ERIM workshop with Engineers.
  • PS reported on the work that he and NJ have begun to benchmark against the EPrints deposit workflow (WP8). NJ will work closely with BJ on this.
  • The group discussed WP9—the planned assessment of data sources—and CL’s role as library user. There are three obvious areas where Orbital crosses over with the Library’s priorities:
    • Integration with the Library’s Discovery selection & implementation project (CL)
    • Integration with the Repository (BJ)
    • Authentication (CL)
  • The Research & Enterprise office (i.e. AJ) will lead on WP11 – developing training materials & workshops.
  • JW will carry on the work with the University’s IP manager, James Murray on the correct approach to Open Sourcing code from Orbital – WP13.
  • ACTION: JW to follow up contacts with EPrints Services and OSSWatch.
  • Dissemination (WP14):
    • PS has been invited to speak at two events in January/February. The group will aim to have a publishable conference paper ready by Summer 2012. Submit abstract to OR12 by ?.
    • NJ, PS and JW are attending the project startup meeting in Nottingham on 1-2 December; presenting a poster. Also attending the DCC roadshow in Cardiff in mid-December.
  • Any other business:
    • JW is convening a meeting (8th December) about agile software and project development methods.
  • ACTION: as many people as possible from Orbital to attend ‘agile’ meeting.

1st Steering Group meeting. Plan for the future

Joss Winn / / Meetings

We met this morning for our first Steering Group meeting of the Orbital Project. Following a discussion about the objectives of the MRD programme in general, the main agenda point was to discuss the Project Plan prior to me sending it to JISC. I will publish the Plan on this website once it has been signed off.

Questions were raised by the Steering Group specific to the research data of Engineers and the confidential and commercial nature of their work. Our School of Engineering was established through a partnership with Siemens and therefore the research undertaken by some of our researchers uses data provided under strict confidentiality agreements. The Orbital project has always been aware of this and it is one of the interesting challenges which we highlighted in our bid to JISC. It raises very important questions over ownership, authenticity, privacy and liability. Further discussions on this topic will be forthcoming.

Another point was raised by Dr. James Murray, our IP Manager, around the use of open licenses for documentation and code and whether the infrastructure we develop might have any commercial value. On a project of this size, it’s an important question and one I had given some thought to. Personally, I admire the way that the University of Southampton has created a commercial service around their open source EPrints software, which we use and subscribe to at Lincoln. I was asked if we might invite someone from EPrints Services to come to discuss their experience with the Steering Group at our next meeting in February. I was pleased that this was brought up at this early stage as developing a Business Case for Orbital is not only vital to the long-term sustainability of our work, but a required output of the project, too. Given the project team’s preference for employing and publishing open source software, I’m keen that a Business Model based on open source software be given thorough consideration. It’s very early days to be thinking about this, but such considerations do take time to work out, too.

Finally, Prof. Andrew Hunter, Head of the College of Science and our Senior User, identified other areas of our STEM research that would benefit from the work of Orbital. This is not something we need to concentrate on right now in this MRD pilot project, but it, too, is an important consideration in planning for the long-term deployment and use of Orbital.

First week meeting notes

Joss Winn / / Meetings

Paul and I met earlier to catch up on where we are after the first week of the Orbital project.

We have:

  • Advertised the Lead Developer post. Interviews taking place Wednesday 19th.
  • Completed NOV/JD for Developer post, to be advertised 01/02/12
  • Arranged the Steering Group calendar
  • Met with Jill Stewart, Head of Engineering and most of Project Team for an informal briefing
  • Set up a recurring monthly team meeting
  • Started to put together a reading list
  • Started to arrange for accommodation for the project team
  • Written an article for the Staff Magazine
  • Set up a project website (needs more work)
  • Set up an issue tracker, code repository and project mailing list

We need to:

  • Set up initial meeting with Engineering users
  • Paul to contact Mansur Darlington (ERIM project) and DCC
  • Joss to write Project Plan for 26-10-11
  • Project Website needs work: member bios, press pack, etc. Check given examples.
  • Clarify MRD Programme objectives for everyone at next team meeting,
  • Book conference attendance: USTLG Workshop on research data and Warwick conference. Also, DCC event in Cardiff.
  • Joss to send Simon Hodson, JISC Programme Manager, the project template
  • Lead Developer to join JISCMail when recruited
  • Paul and Joss to book on Programme launch workshop on 1-2/12.

Where appropriate, I’ve added these to our Project tracker.