MERI

Friday, 15 April 2011

Checklists

Updating the workflows for the SCONUL project

After joining the SCONUL project, we needed to look at our workflows again, and adapt them so that they could be used by any institution, not just Salford. The main difficulty with this was finding a balance, producing detailed workflows that were still generic, and could be used anywhere. We had found from the visits to other institutions, that details such as who manages funds, what criteria are used for renewals, etc can vary quite a bit. However the process of identifying a resource, purchasing, maintaining, renewing and cancelling is basically the same everywhere, and we tried to reflect this in the updated workflows. The first step was to expand the 'maintenance' section of the workflow into individual steps for change of title, change of platform etc. This made it much clearer and easier to understand what happens in each situation. Next, we created 3 sets of workflows for E-journals, Databases and E-books. After some discussion it was decided that E-books were out of scope, so we abandoned those workflows and concentrated on the journals and databases. We merged these, as many processes are the same or similar for both kinds of resource. We now have one big document, detailing all the workflows. Where the process is slightly different for Journals and databases, we have shown 2 worklows (eg. 1A and 1B); where the process is the same regardless of format, we have just one workflow (eg. stage 2 Ordering); there are also a few stages that will only apply to journals (eg. stage 8 Addition of E-access) We also included reference to checklists at certain stages, eg. change of publisher, renewals etc. These indicate points to consider at each stage, such as post-cancellation access or changes to licence etc. They are not intended to always be checked at a certain point in the workflow; they are designed to complement the workflow and be used at the same time. The workflow document can be found here: https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0Bxug72ZifwRlZjY2ODJiZDktMGU3Zi00ZTEzLTgxMDktZjEyZTk0N2UwMGY0&hl=en&authkey=CMLh3bQE

Monday, 20 December 2010

Notes from our meeting on 17th Dec

1. SCONUL project

1.1 Regina is attending the workshop at Bournemouth Uni on Monday.

1.2 Discussed which use cases Salford would like to provide - have suggested:

No. 7 Co-delivery of print and electronic
No. 15 Move to e-only
No. 6 Cancellation of e-journal title

1.3 Discussed who would attend other workshops/ meetings

2 Process maps

2.1 Looked at work on numbering workflows so far - need all processes to be numbered and also to identify inputs/ outputs, processes and descriptions

3. ERM systems

3.1 Would like to mark systems we have seen against out requirements doc - Charlotte to see if possible to have access to demo sites for any of the systems.

Wednesday, 15 December 2010

This is an interim blog post, to refelct on the progress of the project so far, and discuss the exciting new developments for the project. Over the past 6 months, we have been looking at electronic resource management, and have had the opportunity to examine our workflows, and present these for the various scenarios that we currently operate. From the workflows, we have created a preliminary set of requirements for an ERM, which can be used by other institutions. We have applied the MoSCoW methodology to the requirements document, in order to prioritise our needs.

We are now in a position where the Salfmeri work is being further developed by the University in the SCONUL Shared Services strand of the JISC LMS programme, The current ERM Requirements and Workflow deliverables be will enhanced as part of that process. We aim to have 3 open source ERMs operational, in order for us to assess how easy they are to install, and also to walk through their functionality. We will continue to blog here, and also on the SCONUL project blog once it has been established.

Thursday, 2 December 2010

Notes from our meeting on 26th November

1. Our current processes
1.1. Charlotte has added the Process Map to the blog.

2. Shared Services Project
2.1. Angela has received confirmation that we have definitely had funding approved to extend the project and work on the JISC/SCONUL Shared Services project. Angela will attend a meeting in early December to discuss further details
2.2. Angela has passed the details of some open source systems to Justin Wood, who will sort out hosting etc

3. Visit to Sheffield
3.1. Angela and Regina visited the University of Sheffield to discuss their use of Verde
3.2. They are implementing this system in stages, starting with licences, then moving on to trials

4. Requirements document
4.1. We did some more work on the requirements document, rating the ERMs using the ‘MOSCOW’ scoring system

5. Next meeting
5.1. Charlotte will arrange either an extended or additional meeting where we can work more on the requirements document and will email everyone with the details

Thursday, 25 November 2010

Update on our requirements document

We didn't have a team meeting on Friday 19th, as about half the team weren't available. The remainder started to look at our requirements document and rated each criterion using the MoSCoW method:

Must have
Should have if possible
Could have if it does not affect anything else
Would like to have

More will follow on this after our meeting tomorrow (26th), where we will be looking at the document again, and preparing to mark each ERM based on this system.

Our current procedures - map

Here you can see the 'process map' showing all of our E-resources processes in one document:

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0Bxug72ZifwRlODBlMmMzYTgtYWQ1Ni00MGFhLWE2ZDYtNTYxYTg4MjhlMjQ0&hl=en&authkey=CKf3hVQ

Just to clarify, 'Collections' on this document refers to JA & DL/AD (see previous post on people involved in the process), who look after our resources on SFX and Metalib, collect stats etc.

'Acquisitions' refers to ST & RF, who work more with the Talis records, financial information etc