These use cases refer to illustrations in the use case PDF.

The Cast

Researcher: Different varieties of researchers don't label themselves as they arrive at the GRN doorstep. As they make their way through results that GRN brings forward, they will distinguish themselves, but the really all start out as a "researcher" actor, so we don't distinguish here. At MHS these folks are sometimes called "deep users."

Visitor: The public visits the MHS site for various reasons that are not really research, per se. They are planning a visit, looking for someone on the staff, trying to find out about an exhibit. Any user of the site not engaged in deep research is a visitor. At MHS these folks are sometimes called "casual users."

Partner: The GRN is built of materials at MHS and beyond. Those "beyond" materials are supplied by other organizations around the state. Staff from these "partner" organizations are who we refer to with this actor.

Funder: A number of organizations participate in funding the GRN effort. Representatives of these organizations are funders.

Legislator: The state of Minnesota is special case of funder. In fact, the legislator could be considered another funder, we highlight this role with its own actor partly to remind ourselves this is a public effort we are engaged in.

Publicist: This actor represents people who have to market and publicize the GRN. They are generally staff of the GRN, but sometimes may come from beyond that boundary.

Developer: As a community site, other web developers will want to use the GRN as a building block of their own work. This actor represents these developers and the systems they build.

Admin: Staff at MHS will be responsible for administering and maintaining GRN. This actor represents their needs.

Use Case Drafts

A1. Developer seeks site map for own index.

Andrew wants to index the GRN data and provide a visual search interface. He uses the web services of GRN which provide a regularly updated site map that facilitates a regular and efficient crawl of GRN data.

A2. Developer integrates results into own site.

Allison loves the GRN search & retrieval, but needs to integrate a very particular search and its results into her legislative web site, which looks completely different from GRN. Instead of resorting to screen-scraping, she finds that GRN provides an API for submitting searches and getting the results as JSON or XML packages.

B1. Developer seeks documentation of web service.

Betsy wants to allow people on her site to search Minnesota birth records. She's heard that GRN at MHS can provide links to such records as a service that she can integrate with her own web site. She finds documentation on how to integrate GRN results into her own page on the GRN site.

B2. Partner seeks documentation of contribution format.

Brad is responsible for preparing his historical society's data for ingest by the GRN. On the GRN site he finds documentation on how to prepare data for ingest, including links to documents which define the standards GRN staff use to move data between systems.

C. Partner sets up new contribution stream.

Brad has followed the instructions he found in B2 and is ready to contribute his institution's content to GRN. The final step is to announce the availability of the content by filling out a form on the GRN system. Carol receives the completed form and adds Brad's data to the harvest list and indicates that it should only be used on the test system for now. Once harvesting has begun, she notes that the status of this stream is "testing" and the GRN notifies Brad, who reviews the appearance of data in the test system. If all looks well, he approves the test data and the GRN alerts MHS staff that the stream is ready to go into production. Carol directs the stream to the production system.

D1. Admin adjusts maps type from partner stream.

David, an administrator of the GRN, gets a note from an MHS librarian pointing out that some maps from Metro Transit, a GRN partner, are not getting categorized as maps. David takes a look at the stream of data harvested from Metro Transit, which turns out to be a relatively simple web harvest. Inspecting the source of these pages reveals that the maps in question are always PDF format files with "rtmp" in the name. David sets up a new step in the Metro Transit harvesting workflow to add a "map" type to each item that meets this test. He reinitiates the Metro Transit workflow and soon these records are being recognized as maps on GRN.

D2. Partner reschedules an update of their content.

Deb just realized that the GRN is not due to harvest data from her county historical society until the beginning of next month. This is a shame, since they just added some really cool images that would be great in the GRN. She visits the GRN website to arrange an early harvest of their content so that the GRN will reflect this new content. Deb is impressed that even though the GRN includes millions of records, this early harvest will result in updates to the GRN within 72 hours.

E1. Funder seeks monthly contribution and usage statistics.

Eileen is a staffer at the Bush Foundation and needs to prepare an update for the foundation board. She is looking for statistics about various grant project. She is pleased that she can find GRN usage stats on the site.

E2. Partner replaces logo for their results skin.

Ed likes that GRN searches limited to the content his museum contributed to the system display with a simple skin designed by a museum volunteer to look a bit more like their website. But the museum recently implemented a new visual identity and now Ed would like the new logo to be used in the GRN skin as well. Ed uses the partner profile on the GRN to upload the new logo.

F. Researcher leaves a comment on a record.

Felicia notices that the description of a document in the GRN actually mistranslates a key passage of the document. She leaves a brief comment on the GRN noting the correct translation.

G1. Legislator seeking the head of MHS exhibits.

Rep. Smitson wants to give an important constituent a couple tickets to what he has heard is a wonderful exhibit at MHS. His staff secretary, Glenn, has no idea who can help him, so he heads to the search box on the MHS page and types in "exhibit tickets". Since this search started on a general mnhs.org web page, the results highlight MHS information. Glenn sees a link to the exhibits tickets page in the results and clicks. Luckily he sees a phone number for group purchases on that page, close enough, he picks up the phone.

G2. Partner trying to find Bob's office.

Gail is coming to town for a meeting with Bob about their partnership with the GRN project. She's about to leave when she realized she does not have Bob's office room number. She heads to mnhs.org and types Bob's name into the search box. Since this search started on a general mnhs.org web page, the results highlight MHS information. Gail sees Bob's name in the results and clicking on it goes to his directory information at MHS. Unfortunately the room number is not there, so she calls Bob instead.

G3. Visitor looking for Forestville.

Gaston wants to visit Forestville and all he can remember is that someone told him it was associated with MHS. He sees nothing about Forestville on the front page, but decides to try the search box. Since this search started on a general mnhs.org web page, the results highlight MHS information. Gaston sees a link to Forestville directions and clicks away.

H. Researcher wants to know more about "John Pool" in Minnesota.

Henry is a genealogist working for the Pool family. His research has led him to a branch of the family in Minnesota, so he comes to the MHS site seeking more information about the family. He starts by entering "John Pool" into the search box. Since this search started on a general mnhs.org web page, the results highlight MHS information. But Henry notices that one of the smaller columns show birth and death records from Minnesota. He clicks the "more of these" link under the birth records. The search results rearrange themselves, making the birth records more prominent and providing an opportunity to enter first and last name separately. He takes advantage of that, and ends up with a very helpful summary of people data from GRN.

I. Researcher looking for pictures for history day.

Ingrid is looking for images she can use as part of her history day essay on the St. Anthony Falls. She types "St. Anthony Falls" into the search box on the MHS home page and ends up with a page that has all sorts of results on it. Right at the top is some link to an exhibit years ago at the History Center, but what catches her eye is a small grid of pictures further down the page. Since she's looking for images, she clicks on this grid and ends up with a page that makes a whole set of images more prominent in the results. She starts sorting through them for ones that would work for her paper. Ingrid has to hurry since it is due tomorrow!

J. Researcher saves a search.

Jeremy has spent some time constructing a nice search of GRN for his topic. He's used some limiters and some boolean terms, and he's afraid that he'll forget the combo in the coming weeks. He'd like to check back later to see what turns up. He clicks the "save search" button and gives the system his email address. The system sends Jeremy an email message with a link he can use to re-execute the search at a later time.

Implications for Functionality

These use cases have informed a draft of functional requirements for the next GRN.