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In small groups members investigated activities and tactics that would strengthen the DuraSpace brand and expand the organizational footprint. Ideas and suggestions were discussed and documented for further action based on three topics related to business development:
- How to provide greater value to our communities through added services, consulting, and exploratory work
- How to engage beyond Canada and the US
What organizations other than the five identified in the strategic plan should we approach and how will we forge strategic partnerships with them?
(From Val: Should we include a very brief summary of some of the feedback?)
Suggestions ranged from an idea to collaboratively develop a high-level environmental scan or “map” of the scholarly ecosystem that would rationalize the knowledge infrastructure space, to the idea that DuraSpace might provide a layer of service for member organizations that would enable them to host DuraSpace services under their own brand. Members also discussed new strategies to fund and sustain open source project technical development and how to relate activities and tactics to increased engagement beyond Canada and the US.
DSpace, Fedora and VIVO project leaders spent the remainder of the day working on project-specific questions, marketing strategies, policies and related tasks.
(From Val: Have each of the projects written a brief report/summary of these discussions?)DSpace and VIVO summaries to come)
DSpace
Fedora
Representatives of the Fedora membership focused on topics relating to sustainability, with the working definition of, "sustained financial support and stakeholder engagement for ongoing innovation". It was recognized that financial health should come from a diversification of project revenue streams, while engagement and innovation opportunities rest with deeper alignment and coordination with adjacent projects, such as Islandora and Hydra. Notions of software sustainability were discussed in the context of an official policy of support for critical patches to previous major releases and formalized, production-scale release testing infrastructure.
VIVO
Robert Cartolano, DuraSpace Board member and Associate Vice President, Digital Programs and Technology Services at Columbia University Libraries/Information Services offered closing DuraSpace Summit remarks by reminding the audience that DuraSpace is thriving, and moving towards integrated knowledge infrastructure solutions based on feedback from their valued members.
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