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Charge of the DSpace Community Advisory Team (DCAT)

The

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DSpace Community Advisory Team (DCAT)

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Activities

The following are a list of potential activities for the team members. Team members will help develop and refine priorities as necessary.  Estimated time for each team member is around 5-10 hours a month. For more details about the new feature request review process, click here.

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represents the interests of repository managers and administrators across the globe and, indirectly, DSpace end users. DCAT is a permanent Working Group that advises other DSpace project governance and leadership groups (e.g., DSpace Steering Group, DSpace Product Planning Group). The Team solicits feedback through community-wide discussions, surveys, etc. to help ensure future software releases address the needs of the community. DCAT submits an annual report to the DSpace Steering group that makes the report public after review.

 A specific area of focus for DCAT is defined annually by DCAT and the Steering Group.

2014 Focus

DCAT is charged by the DSpace Product Planning Group to gather DSpace use cases from the DSpace user community. As such, DCAT is expected to deliver these use cases to the DSpace Product Planning Group by September 2014.

DCAT Membership

DCAT members are primarily individuals who function as DSpace repository managers at their institution. Members have an interest in advancing the development of the DSpace software and expanding the DSpace user community. DCAT aims to have global representation in order to provide broad support to the DSpace user community. DCAT members generally devote approximately 5-10 hours per month to the Team.

DCAT Chair

The DCAT Chair is responsible for facilitating the Team. This includes:

• Building consensus among Team members to set the group’s priorities

• Establishing meeting agendas and running meetings

• Reporting and communicating results of these meetings

• Serving as an ex-officio member of the DSpace Steering Group

• Establishing sub-teams to work on various projects    

DCAT Meeting Frequency

DCAT holds open monthly teleconference meetings. The DCAT Chair distributes the agenda at least one week in advance. For more information and meeting notes visit DCAT Meeting Notes.

Regular DCAT Member Activities

Most of the DCAT members will partake in these regular activities

• Contribute to recommendations for the DSpace Steering Group and other leadership and working groups on DCAT perspective and community feedback

• Participate on DCAT projects requested by the DSpace Steering Group and other DSpace leadership and working groups

• Champion particular feature requests or bug reports. This may include but is not limited to facilitating community-wide discussions on new feature requests, flesh out minimum requirements and try to identify potential project team / stakeholders and developers.

• Participate in mailing lists or discussion forums to share knowledge and best practices

• Attend monthly DCAT teleconference

Other Possible DCAT Member Activities

Some DCAT members are engaged in additional activities

• Collaborate on projects, tools, resources (e.g., DSpace Documentation) which serve the community

• Organize physical or virtual user group meetings

• Attend the DSpace Committers meetings

• Survey the DSpace community to solicit comments and suggestions on developments for the software (archived surveys)

• Network regularly with other DSpace users locally and internationally

• Network regularly with the larger repository community, to stay abreast of initiatives and developments elsewhere from which DSpace could benefit

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Meetings

The team meets once a month via a conference call. The purpose of the meeting is primarily to share news/information and refine our review process. Most of the work of DCAT takes place outside the meeting, so if there are members who cannot attend either meeting  they can still contribute significantly to the DCAT efforts.

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Mailing List

Members of DCAT use a Google Group mailing list for their communications. Anyone from the community is welcome to join.

Team Members

Team members are volunteers from the world-wide DSpace user community. Members will be primarily made up of individuals who function as DSpace repository managers at their institution and have interest in advancing the DSpace software, developing resources/tools for DSpace users and as well as expanding the user community network world-wide. The team aims to have representatives from variety of countries/regions in order to provide broad support the DSpace user community.

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Current Members of the DSpace Community Advisory Team

@Augustine Gitonga - Aga Khan University Hospital

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Valorie Hollister - University of Arizona Libraries 

History

The DCAT is a reconstituted version of it's predecessor, the DSpace Global Outreach Committee.

More information

For more information about DCAT, please contact Valorie Hollister at vhollister at duraspace.orgthe co-chairs Bram Luyten (Atmire) or Maureen Walsh. Any question or comment is also welcome on the open mailing list.