D R A F T : This proposal is still a draft under discussion. It may change substantially before it is put into effect. It may even be dropped altogether.

OCLC Research (OR) works with the community to collaboratively identify problems and opportunities, prototype and test solutions, and share findings through publications, presentations and professional interactions. The RLG Partnership, supported by the full capacities of OCLC Research, focuses on making operational processes more efficient by shaping new scholarly services and directly engaging senior managers. OCLC has found that the website it presents for its research efforts at http://www.oclc.org/programsandresearch does not convey clearly enough the story of OCLC Research and the RLG Partnership, the activities of its staff, or the ways the community can join in the efforts afoot.

This spring I worked with OCLC staff to begin a process of rebuilding the OCLC Research web presence which we then began to implement this summer. Unfortunately, we were not able to hit our target of deploying the new site by the end of the summer, so this continuation of the original implementation proposal describes the tasks required during this extra month to get the project done.

Continuing the Execution Phase

We intended for the basic execution of the web site to be complete by the end of July, but as we review the tasks still before us as August gets underway, we believe we still have a few weeks of work ahead.

Given the severe limits of Collage discovered over the course of the summer, we decided to use an external process to shuffle our existing assets. We copied the assets via FTP, manipulated them with scripts and filesystems outside of Collage, and re-inserted them into Collage via FTP. Given the limits of FTP and the OCLC VPN, even this process was plenty awkward, but we have demonstrated it can be done. Considerable manual cleanup on the Collage end remains even after this external processing. Even though we have been through this process once, we expect to discover enough mismatches of expectation vs. reality that another round will be necessary.

Our activity pages, the heart of the new site, have been defined and their data entered. Unfortunately we have not had the Collage-based "contribution" entry form available since the corporate web team has been too busy to meet deadlines we set jointly earlier in the summer. Instead, we used a spreadsheet for data entry and scripts to move the data to Collage. Given how new the actual data entry forms are, we anticipate significant further work from the corporate web team to help us reach a satisfactory conclusion.

We also learned that the corporate web team will have to assist us with changes to our "people" data templates and "publication" data links to WorldCat. This work is only just getting under way. We may also need a bit of corporate assistance in developing our carousel, though the corporate web team has given us a green light to use a tool we found in June that can be managed, for the most part, without their help.

Clearly this remaining work will account for two to three more weeks of significant effort on the part of our OR Web team. It will require the remainder of August.

Deliverable: Staged site.

Deliverable: Working carousel.

Deliverable: Working micro-update feed.

Timeframe: August

The Cleanup Phase

The site should be well enough filled in to benefit from some internal critique by the end of August. We plan to gather feedback from the staff electronically during the week of 8/31 with possible staff meeting opportunities to gather feedback in person on 9/4. Given the limited time available, we cannot promise too many adjustments in response to staff feedback. Simple fixes will be made, but more involved issues will be added to a list of changes to be made as time allows after the public rollout. Decisions about how to respond to staff feedback will be made by he OR Web team, with occasional items being floated to Jim and Lorcan for review.

We have already begun to build a rollout checklist that describes the steps we have to take to turn on the new site and turn off the old sites. We are planning to deploy a final review site between 9/25-9/28 with the final rollout of a new public site a week later, between 10/2-10/7.

Deliverable: Rollout checklist.

Deliverable: Internal survey.

Deliverable: List of recommended future enhancements.

Deliverable: Public web site.

Timeframe: September, with public launch in first week of October.

Concerns

Collage, which is normally quite difficult to work with, has been particularly painful this summer. Some significant changes to the corporate site may have been responsible for the increased downtime and slow response times. This work was certainly responsible for delaying the attention corporate web team members could spend on our project. It also took OCLC help desk staff a while to help us find a path through the VPN to both Collage and Collage FTP so that I could carry out my tasks for the OR Web team. Concluding this effort in a timely way is highly dependent on Collage availability.

The communications staff (Bob and Melissa) and Patrick, in particular, will need continued focus on this task, even if that means delaying other obligations. We "froze" the current site at the start of August, so any changes to the current site now require "double entry" into the new site. This certainly motivates the communications staff to get the transition finished! These team members also participate in online conversations and the maintenance of Q&A pages, templates, and other documentation of the project. There has been a considerably greater effort put into this implementation than we saw put toward the earlier design phase. Patrick, in particular, is now doing considerable work on this transition effort.

The timeline, even though extended for a month, is still constricted enough to require compromises. One particular one that worries the team is the fact that the research lifecycle process is getting more loosely coupled to the web site redevelopment. The closer the alignment here, the better the chance of success for the site and the research matrix process.

Timeline

This continuation will require the month of September and a week of October.

September: Set up a weekly phone call with the team to review progress and help drive tasks to completion. (via phone, one possible face2face)
31 August: Launch internal survey of staged site.
4 September: Staff meetings to provide feedback to the team in person.
25-28 September: Deploy final review site.
2-7 October: Deploy public site, remove old content from the web.

Costs

The additional cost of this continuation would be $5,000 plus whatever expenses there are getting back and forth to Dublin. Since this proposal does not call for any additional face to face meetings beyond the one remaining in the original proposal, I don't anticipate any expenses beyond what we already planned on covering.

I would invoice $5,000 at the beginning of October.

Punchdown List

To give you a sense of the tasks that remain to be done for this transition, here is a copy of our current punchdown list. This is a snapshot of a living document, so please be aware it changes regularly.

ORWeb Punchdown Checklist

This is the checklist of tasks that we must complete in order to launch the new ORWeb site. Team members, please feel free to edit this list. Add your questions, add missing tasks, update those that are completed.

Move all simple files..

complete movement of standin files in departmental file share (patrick) expected 090405 [complete]
download via FTP a new copy of existing file tree from Collage {when?} 090704-090705 (efc) [complete] (note, side effect is that the official site is then frozen until we come up on the new site)
run script to create new file tree and mapping file from standins and most recent FTP files (efc) [complete]
run script to rewrite links in new file tree using mapping file (efc) [complete]
{ do we need a script to fix the design elements? what are they? } no, according to bob 090404
upload via FTP new file tree to "/or" folder on Collage (efc) (done once)
update asset type for xml staff and announcement (efc or patrick)
update master page reference in the properties of these files (communications team)
review "/or" folder with files in place (team)

Create activity contributions...

complete entry of activities in "ORWeb Activities Entry" (patrick) expected 090405 [complete]
complete template for activity entries (lorna) (draft in place)
test template and use these test activities as basis for script move spreadsheet to XML (efc) [complete]
run script to move spreadsheet entries to XML (efc) (done once)
upload via FTP the XML to the "/or/activities" folder (efc)
fix the property type entry via search and batch property editing on Collage (efc or patrick)
copy properties and metadata from contribution body to proper fields (patrick)
develop activity display page template (not communications team) (lorna) (draft available)
develop activity list page (activities home page and theme pages) templates (not communications team) (lorna)

Create people entries...

complete any modification of people template, special attention to publications (communications team) (bob, lorna)
develop new people page template (not communications team) (lorna)
develop new people list templates (communications team or lorna)

Create publication entries...

finish SQL version of publications (childress)
ask OCLC web staff to prepare a data source for us (communications team)
write publication queries into "/or/publications" pages (efc)
test deployment (team with Kevin Lacey; secondary: Steve Swain; Jimmy Vu (suggestions on how?))
write publication queries into people contribution forms (communications team)

Create micro-output feed...

agree on final venue for micro-output blog (brian)
agree on who is publishing real micro-outputs (brian)
give micro-output authors the tools to publish (brian)
adjust Yahoo pipe for micro-outputs to track real entries (efc)
develop includable view of micro-outputs for ORWeb sidebar, set up for three (efc)

Carousel...

purchase Flash tool (melissa)
decide which stories will be in rotation (melissa)
arrange for imagery (melissa)
create XML file to drive Flash tool (melissa and efc)

Review "/or" directory for completeness...

review by team (team)
invite staff to review, especially their own projects and people pages (team)
share questionnaire with research staff (ricky)
collate responses from staff (ricky)
apply any simple fixes from questionnaire (team)

Connect the rest of the corporate site...

fix the global menu (from PAR to R) (bob)
fix links in the rest of the site (bob)
finalize the content for the regional template pages (bob and melissa)

Move "or" to "research"...

final sign off from leadership (childress)
make sure we have an archive copy of the old site (bob)
wipe the old "research" site to facilitate mapping (bob)
make Collage move "or" to "research" (communications team)

New issues 090810...

we may need special master pages (bob)
- one that does not show siblings in the right navigation, for example, call this "hidden siblings master"
- one or two other situations with special master pages on the old site
we will need to set the deployment flag properly, "only if referenced" is most common
- some will need "deploy always"
display templates for activities, people, and announcements need to reference new masters
above the fold template

Eric Celeste

Eric brings over 15 years of library and 25 years of technology experience to his consulting. At MIT Eric shepherded the creation of DSpace, open source digital repository management software developed with HP and now deployed at hundreds of institutions worldwide. At the University of Minnesota Libraries he encouraged the development of the UThink blog service, a wiki-based staff intranet, LibData, and the University Digital Conservancy. He works with non-profit institutions on appropriate uses of technology for informing, communicating, and collaborating with their constituencies.

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