Fedora Outreach User Group

From FedoraWiki

Fedora Outreach Meeting Summary, July 27, 2006

The Fedora Users Interview Survey

Report From the Fedora Outreach Working Group

Sandy Payette, Co-director of the Fedora Project observed, “Repositories are situated at the intersection of key social and technical trends,” in her presentation entitled Fulfilling the Fedora Vision: Taking on Complex Problems and Providing Flexible Solutions. She reviewed the social imperatives that are driving institutional adoption of the Fedora architecture as well as key challenges and opportunities for the Fedora community in further developing both Fedora technology and the Fedora organization during the final year of Mellon Foundation funding.

Payette’s description of repositories that will enable future scholars to work in on-line environments that are at least as rich as those they have cobbled together around the edges of information systems was on our minds as Grace Agnew, Associate University Librarian for Digital Library Systems at Rutgers University, David Dinham, ICT Manager for the National Library of Scotland, and I met to discuss Fedora Outreach strategies to meet community needs for better information about how and why Fedora is being deployed globally. Eric Jansson, Program Development for NITLE, Stacy S. Pennington, ITS for Rhodes College, and Matt Zumwalt, MediaShelf Online Media have also volunteered to assist with Outreach efforts.

We discussed the idea that many non-technical institutional decision-makers do not know what a repository is, or even why you need one. There is a need for standardized use cases detailing how Fedora works in different implementations with clear definitions of core services

Potential users want to know what the steps are in implementing Fedora: what are the time commitments and resources needed; who are the people who have done it; what was Fedora implementation like from differing

FEDORA OUTREACH 2006-2007 PRIORITIES

Outreach efforts will focus on answering those questions to serve the growing internal (developers and implementers) and external (institutional leaders and potential collection contributors) Fedora communities.

1. The more awareness we can build of Fedora’s ability to manage new types of information in an efficient, distributed and collaborative manner, the more institutions will adopt Fedora ensuring an ongoing and vibrant community
a. Develop compelling use “stories” about Fedora projects that will interest all potential audiences

i. Outreach group will review last year’s user survey and develop questions for the community 

ii. Outreach group will cold-call Fedora projects and interview PIs to gather this information

iii. Outreach group will inventory and exploit all current tools including the web site, wiki, existing content, conference presentations, internal lists, external lists, other project web sites, and future user conferences to tell these stories and do more comprehensive branding

2. There is general concern about sustaining our efforts beyond current funding cycles. a. Increased understanding through ongoing push documentation and communications will potentially lead to new collaborations and suggestions for additional public and private funding proposals.

i. Focus on using existing community tools to expand the community beyond developers and implementers to more fully include institutional leaders and potential collection contributors.

Please add your comments.

Carol Minton Morris NSDL Communications Director
Coordinator, Fedora Outreach Working Group