2019-10-23 DSpace Leadership Group Meeting

Attendees

• Pascal-Nicolas Becker (The Library Code)*

• Allan Bell (University of British Columbia Library) 

• John Butler (University of Minnesota)*

• Suzanne Chase (Georgetown University)

• Lieven Droogmans (Atmire)*

• Federico Ferrario / Roberto Suardi (Cineca)

• Scott Hanrath (University of Kansas) 

• Barbara Hirschmann (ETH Zurich) 

• Jyrki Ilva (National Library of Finland)*

• Pierre Lasou (Université Laval)

• Mariya Maistrovskaya (University of Toronto)

• Agustina Martinez Garcia (University of Cambridge)*

• Joao Mendes Moreira (Foundation of Science and Technology Portugal)*

• Susanna Mornati (4Science)* Apologies (replaced by Andrea Bollini)

• César Olivares (CONCYTEC)*

• Jere Odell (Indiana University Purdue University Indiana)

• Kristi Park (Texas Digital Library)

• Beate Rajski (Hamburg University of Technology)
• Gail Steinhart (Cornell University)

• Maureen Walsh (The Ohio State University Libraries)*

LYRASIS

• Laurie Arp
• Michele Mennielli
• Robert Miller
• Tim Donohue
• Heather Greer Klein

The  represents who will be taking notes for a given meeting. It rotates after each meeting to the next person in the attendee list.

*Members of DSpace Steering Group

Meeting time:  12AM-1PM GMT-4

Join from PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android: https://lyrasis.zoom.us/j/9963190968  (Meeting ID: 996 319 0968)

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Meeting ID: 996 319 0968
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Agenda

NOTES:

Welcome and introductions

Andrea Bollini represents 4Science today instead of Susana

John H Senior director tech and innovation at Lyrasis, welcome!

Kristi: Great diversity of perspective and approaches within the group so we should take advantage of this and take very collaborative approaches: executive directors, technical reps, repository managers, etc.

Quarterly Finance Report

Laurie: first time we have quarterly reports - shareable format across different communities. High level overly of everything where fiscals are at. Next page is a more detailed view, sense of details for the quarter

• Underspent on travel
• In the future these can be shared and we can simply get questions in the agenda

Robert's comments: see growth year on year. As of now not enough data. Third sheet: US accounting Gap - it's good for the law but not for running the business | it's difficult to see how much cash there is  [complete]. Issues around "safety nets" - we do not run the business in this way, instead we see a problem and we try to resolve immediately.

Questions?

Cesar: future discussion around investing in development, do we have money for this from our own existing budget? Not at the moment

Global  representation on DSpace Leadership - a proposal for the at-large Leadership seats

Kristi: using at large seats to engage people from user groups

Michele: Idea last time, Mic to send a message to the community to open up those seats. Mic has waited to discuss with the Leadership team before launching anything. Question for the group: if we have ideas for particular user groups or we want to nominate, simply go through the user groups and  send ideas to Mic. Otherwise, Mic will send the email across to everybody.

Pascal, Kristi: Africa, Asia good options - seats for Comm folks and not community members? Mic: Yes, correct - users that do not necessarily work for a member Institution

Cesar: more than half of the installation are from Africa / South America. Mic could you nominate someone from Africa

Mic: DSpace registry (which is not super accurate). Asia + Latin America represent more that half of the installations. I will get in touch with the coordinators of those groups for them to nominate, but the call will go to all transparently.

Robert: What's the commitment from them, what background / experience? Lyrasis help framing the profile for the member position to focus it on specific areas: technical, community.

Mic: similar to any other member, but to also nurture relationships with the national user groups

Action: Michele will reach out the user groupa, and also identify potential nominees

Changing the Ex Officio Status of the organizational home seat on Leadership Group

Currently, Erin Tripp is serving as the organizational home representative on the Leadership Group, with Laurie Arp serving as interim.

Context: up to this point there's always been Home Org rep but that seat has been without voting. The proposal is to change to a voting seat. Kristi feels that the role it's important and has been very useful so it deserves a vote.
Pascal: this position already has an important role, serves in all the meetings but it's more of a "neutral" position helping with decisions, pushing ideas / topics but not voting. More of a neutral player aiding with negotiations. However, I am open to revisit the MoU.
Beate seconds Pascal - this role supports structure. I would like Lyrasis to have a seat but not a vote.
Joao: Lyrasis has a financial responsibility, therefore I think that at a minimum they should have a voting right: decisions we make here have an impact of their finances.
Lieven: agree with Pascal - heavily involved in the MoU process
Allan Bell: also support Pascal
Kristi: MoU is not supposed to be a 'set in stone' document? Do we need to revisit that document and reflect before trying to answer this question. A neutral player is great, but the Home Org is taking huge risks financial so giving a single vote makes sense as a recognition of that
Robert: I don't have the experience on the work of the MoU. Lyrasis has other 7 comm projects, legal, fiscal and HR liability. As a CEO, not having a vote and being that exposed is not a comfortable position. If neutral means argue both sides, and step back I think is a misuse of the Home Org. The home org could be neutral by being active, not threatening or self-serving and making informed decisions with solid data and research. We are here to serve the comm, which allow us to support our voice at the table. "We do not want to be renters but part-owner". The vote is an endorsement
Cesar: the MoU was drafted thinking about preserving our own governance for the community and protecting us as we did not know the Home Organisation. 1 vote won't change decisively, is more symbolic / recognition. We are also in a time that we need all the help that we can get. We need the experience and commitment shown by Lyrasis so far.

More discussion and thinking is needed. Let's table for now and discuss again / vote at the next meeting

Creating a sustainable path forward for DSpace 7

Given current challenges and delays with DSpace 7 development, how can governance create/support a predictable and viable path forward for DSpace 7 development?

• Lyrasis proposal for Managed Product Release approach to DSpace 7 going forward: DSpace Beta Release proposal - Brief 20191022.pdf
• Other approaches or proposals, including postponement of certain feature sets to DSpace 8

What strategies can Leadership envision for securing resources to accelerate DSpace 7 development (and sustain and grows the Project long-term)? Some possible approaches:

• Community Sponsorship of certain features. This would include “adopt-a-feature”.
• Strategic Grant applications.
• A concerted outreach to the current members.
• An end-of-the year campaign where the membership is encouraged to contribute unused funds.
• Accelerated volunteer code contribution.

The group recognises the enormous contributions of 4Science / Atmire, and the steer from Tim Donohue

Two years now since the major Dspace 6 release, mostly contributed by our community and not the community necessarily. Still quite some work to do. Given the challenges, we need to think about what we can do to "reset" and communicate a new plan: predictable milestones, targets that we can meet, etc.

John / Tim who worked on this proposal to talk us through the approach - Managed releases

Tim: collaboration between Laurie, Mic, James English and myself. It's more a framework:

• Detailed estimated process by feature from developers. Current numbers in the doc will be more accurate in the next coming weeks
• Overall goal: make the release process more managed, structured and understandable for the community.
• Stage review process
• Overall idea: stage things out into series of Beta releases focusing on a particular set of features. Marketing comms activities can be developed in conjunction with this
• Each Beta around 550 hours of effort. With more developers things can happen in paralel

Laurie / John: this engages more the community, see previews, look at it and get excited about it.

Gail question: Detail-y question: what is meant by “non-contract based commitment” (top of p2)?
A: It relates to more optional or less defined / important features. These could be open for fund-raising.
Lieven: framework to include what's included in each Beta? This is not a final timetable - do not communicate this outside of the group. Dspace 7 is not late really, we just didn't do a good job of managing expectations.
A: estimation process will better define Betas and allow to move things around if possible. Reveal over/under estimations, etc.

Lieven: fund-raising, the outlined options in the doc might take a long time. Is there a way to overcome this?
A from Robert: this is a working draft of a bold statement that we put in front of users. This is what we are proposing. I would be comfortable to talk to users to explain why we are moving into this way of working. BAU is very difficult as a way of gathering funds. This is in-house discussion and be honest and look for feedback.

Barbara: The document states "OpenAIRE.eu has committed vai MOU 2 FTEs toward development". Over which time period have they committed these FTEs?

Mic: To Barbara: there isn’t a specific reference to a timeframe in the MoU. The 2 FTE are related to DSpace 7 efforts and release. No specific timeframe for now.

Tim: Participation more focused on the Open Aire compliance

Comments from Kristi: with a "fund raising hat on", this is a framework that I can bring to a potential donor. If we can agree on an approach like this, this would allow as a community to plan and add resources to future development efforts [accelerate this process]

Andrea Bollini: not realistic timeframes for this release framework. The real issue is not the lack of resources but the enormous amount of work put in a single release, we need a better definition of priorities and postpone activities which are not strictly necessary. DSpace 7 is very very late, we need to release each year. We don't need to have everything in a single release. We did not estimate properly. Institutions coming to us, we cannot have another OR and do not present a proper release, we cannot go with just another Beta. The effort on the framework is appreciated but we need to release earlier, work with an MVP and continue conversations with the community. We are at risk of also missing a release for OR 2021.

Kristi: the amount of work, the scope has increased a lot. This is a really important conversation and should we convene a smaller group with 4Science, Atmire and Lyrasis to work on those issues: define an MVP and take it from there.

Pascal would like to join that group. Robert can we accelerate and have the discussion next week?

Kristi: convening call to further discuss these issues. Let me know if you want to participate in the fund raising. Discussion to be set by email.