Strategic Planning

2015 Strategic Planning Activities

Summary

In 2015, the DSpace Steering Group established an ad hoc "DSpace RoadMap Working Group" (made up of members of Steering, Committers, and DCAT) to develop a 3-5 year Strategic Plan along with a shorter term (1-2 year) Technology Roadmap detailing how we can immediately improve the software towards achieving our Strategic Plan.  Early drafts of these documents will be presented at the OR2015 conference.

Upcoming Weekly Schedule

• Week of April 13
  
  • Early (very rough) draft of Strategic Plan for Technology
    
  • Analyze and prioritize "UI-related / End User" Use Cases
    
  • NOTE: DCAT meeting on Tues, April 14 - Top DSpace features & most important future UI needs
    
• Week of April 20
  
  • Analyze & prioritize "Administrative" Use Cases
    
• Week of April 27
  • (Continued) Analyze & prioritize "Administrative" Use Cases
  • NOTE: Tim will be traveling much of this week
    
• Week of May 4
  • Draft of Strategic Plan ready for initial review/feedback (by Steering, DCAT, Committers) 
  • NOTE: Steering Group meeting on Weds, May 6  
• Week of May 11
  
  • Analyze & prioritize "Statistics / Metrics" Use Cases
  • Early (very rough) draft of Technical Roadmap begun
    
  • NOTE: DCAT meeting on Tues, May 12
    
• Week of May 18
  • Analyze & prioritize "Integrations" Use Cases
    
• Week of May 25
  • Analyze & prioritize "Structure" Use Cases
  • Draft of Technical Roadmap ready for initial review/feedback (by Steering, DCAT, Committers)
    
• Week of June 1
  • Write OR15 Presentation of Strategic Plan and Technical Roadmap. Finalize the OR15 session details.
  • Strategic Plan and Technical Roadmap are both ready for community feedback
  • NOTE: Steering Group meeting on Weds, June 3
    
• Open Repositories 2015 (June 8-11)
  
  • Presentation of Strategic Plan and rough draft of Technology Roadmap during the DSpace Interest Group sessions on Thurs, June 11.
    

Resulting Documents

• Use Cases : Continuing from the 2014 work, the DSpace Community Advisory Team (DCAT) hosted further meetings to gather community Use Cases and began prioritization of these use cases.
• Use Case Analysis : Analysis and prioritization of the gathered Use Cases.
• DSpace 2015-18 Strategic Plan - Technology (in process):  Based on the 2013 Vision Document and the 2014 Product Plan work, a formal (3-5 year) Strategic Plan for the DSpace platform technology will be developed for discussion at OR15. This Strategic Plan for Technology will lay out action items we will take to achieve the goals laid out in these two founding documents
  • As a reference point, the VIVO 2015-16 Strategic Plan: http://vivoweb.org/files/VIVOStrategicPlan20150210.pdf
• Technical Roadmap (coming soon): Based on the actions and goals laid out in the Strategic Plan, a short term (1-2 year) Technical Roadmap will be developed for discussion at OR15. This Technical Roadmap will detail specific, high-priority implementation projects (i.e. code/UI improvements) which will help the DSpace platform to move in the direction laid out by the Strategic Plan.
  • Rough notes on what a Technical Roadmap may include, and a beginning of a DSpace SWOT Analysis: http://bit.ly/dspace2015-roadmap 
  • Overarching goals:
    • We are NOT aiming for a from scratch rewrite. As we have a very active developer community on that existing codebase, and a from scratch rewrite would require major funding for such a large, well established platform.
      
    • We are aiming at a substantial leap in improving the user experience and the web user interface.
      

2014 Strategic Planning Activities

Summary

In 2014, the DSpace project teams concentrated on establishing a formalized Governance model, ran a  "Vision Survey" to gather needs/use cases from the user community, and compiled an early list of Use Cases based on the survey responses. We also began work on an early "Product Plan" which detailed feature/use case priorities based on the survey results. The survey results, an early Product Plan, and the Governance model were all presented at OR2014 in a session titled "The Future of DSpace"

Resulting Documents

• Project Governance : DSpace formalized its Project Governance model, establishing a DSpace Steering Group and a DSpace Leadership Group, while also formalizing existing Working Groups such as DCAT and Committers. For more details of the roles/responsibilities of each group, also see Project Teams.

• DSpace 2014 Product Plan : An initial, high level plan of use cases / features that DSpace should strive to achieve. This Product Plan was based on the results of the (early 2014) "Vision Survey". It was developed by an temporary Product Planning Group, made up of representatives of DCAT, Committers and the Steering Group.

• Use Cases : Based on the 2014 Vision Survey, and Product Plan, the DSpace Community Advisory Team (DCAT) held a series of meetings to gather community Use Cases
• "The Future of DSpace" session at OR2014 summarized the above documents as well as the Vision Survey results.

2013 Visioning Activities

Summary

In 2013, an ad-hoc "Vision Team" began discussions and brainstorms around what the goals and priorities of the DSpace platform should be in the coming years. This resulted in a high-level, five point Vision Document, which was presented at OR2013 and developed into a Vision Survey in late 2013 / early 2014.

Resulting Documents

• DSpace 2013 Vision Discussions : Details the initial "Vision" discussions that took place in 2013, to brainstorm out a longer term Vision for the DSpace platform. Also details the (early 2014) "Vision Survey" which gathered feedback on the vision, and possible use cases for the DSpace platform going forward.
  
  • DSpace 2013 Vision and Roadmap Meeting - Notes from the two-day kickoff meeting that began these Vision discussions
• DSpace 2013 Vision Document : The 5-point Vision Statement for DSpace.  Also available as a PDF presentation
• "DSpace RoadMap & Vision" session at OR2013 summarized the five point Vision. It was also later turned into a 30-minute screencast on YouTube.