2020-06-23 Meeting notes

Date

23 Jun 2020

Attendees

• Nabeela Jaffer

• Rob Kaufman

• Mark Bussey
• Jon Cameron
• jen young
• Kate Lynch
• James Griffin
• Richard Green
• Simeon Warner
• Carolyn Caizzi
• Chris Awre
• Rosalyn Metz
• Jon Dunn
• Hannah Frost
• Robin Lindley Ruggaber
• John Weise

Goals

• Meeting with Steering to review the purpose and objectives of the Roadmap Council

Discussion items

Notes

Introduction

• Goal is to talk a bit about two topics
  • The recurring theme of Roadmap Council - what it is expected to do vs. what it is really chartered to address
  • If the council is doing what it is chartered to do, then how do we communicate this to the community?
  • Charter is not to create a single roadmap for the community, but instead to try and align various efforts within the community

Roadmap Council Purpose and Goals

• When the Council started, this was chartered to bring together representatives for service providers, representatives from interest groups, and working groups to align project goals
  • Coordinating and communicating regarding community sprints was also a significant undertaking of this group
  • Every IG and WG defined their documents differently - the Roadmap Council first saw to try and standardize this by offering templating
  • Beyond this, there was a whitepaper published addressing the state of the technology in the community
  • Roadmap Council meets every two weeks
• Project Management and Community Sprints
  • This Council was chartered to assist with managing and aligning these
  • 2020 saw an entire year of activity, along with a retrospective
    • Three Goals:
      • Analysis of roadmaps and planning cycles
        • The results of this will be presented during the next Partner Call
      • Facilitating to get code back into core
      • Communicating with the community at large
• When we discuss facilitating contributing to core, is this murky or problematic?
  • If so, what are the obstacles?
  • It comes with challenges given the size of the community, and it will never be trivial
    • There have, however, been real successes
    • User management pieces in Hyku were extracted into a Gem and shared with Hyku and Avalon
      • Who contributed to this?
        • Avalon Team contracted with Notch8, Northwestern paid for the feature with grant funding
      • Roadmap Council makes these efforts known, and interested parties could request involvement and contribute funding or resources
      • The Roadmap Council identified the requirements for work in this case
      • Another Feature: DataCite Integration
        • All community members with this requirement produced a solution for this independently
• Some assumed that the Roadmap Council is to coordinate rather than create a roadmap
•  To what extent should the Roadmap Council invest in aligning IG/WG roadmaps and project roadmaps?
• What of individual institutions and their roadmaps for custom Samvera repositories or local Samvera projects?
• Community Manager is supposed to be a member of the Roadmap Council
  • They are responsible for representing the interests of individual institutions and their roadmaps
  • Community Manager clarifies that there might be similar functional requirements for different Samvera projects undertaken by different institutions
• If we wish to expand the charter of the Council to address institutional roadmaps, this might be helpful, as this objective is not quite clear in the current charter
• Roadmap Council could contribute some of the user stories (in terms of documentation and in order to exhibit the work which was achieved)
  • This would also be useful for the induction of the Community Manager
• DataCite Integration
  • There are currently 7 implementations
  • Is there an activity for identifying which of these are being considered for inclusion into Samvera core?
  • After looking at multiple implementations, Notch8 has found that the implementations are extremely similar in structure
    • For the next institution which need this, perhaps they can work with the community instead
    • Also, it might also be helpful to have seasoned contributors work in order to "reclaim" projects into Samvera core
• Avoiding duplication for future adopters would be very valuable
• Gain an understanding and better communicate where the core code base is going
  • Additionally, indicating how this might affect other core components?
    • Example: Fedora 4 and Valkyrie
  • No one on Steering understood this Council to be chartered to create a single community Roadmap
    • However, where are the boundaries for this? Alignment definitely approaches this type of undertaking between core components and solution bundles
  • Discourse
    • Community members are very receptive to polite suggestions
    • Undertaking major solution bundles (Hyku and Avalon), implementers are knowledgeable of Valkyrie
      • There isn't much more coordination required beyond this point
      • The effort is still being directed, and the Hyrax Tech. Lead is engaging with other community developers to remain in alignment with these efforts
  • There may still be a communication opportunity for somehow discussing the alignment of the roadmaps between different projects
    • This would really be valuable if the Council could make the Valkyrie work for Hyrax much more visible to the community
      • Path for Avalon is to move to Hyrax, hence, the path to Valkyrie is to move to Hyrax on Valkyrie
      • Avalon still has functionality which Hyrax doesn't, and this still needs to be reconciled in such a way that is compatible with widespread community adoption
• Roadmap Council is chartered to coordinate and support "asks"
• Council cannot be responsible for proactively identifying who needs an ask, but representatives should be coming to the Council for support
• How do we encourage representatives to engage with the Council?
  • Perhaps this is a Community Manager responsibility, but what should the path be before we have this role filled?
• Past "asks" have not gone through the Roadmap Council
  • Steering could help by reiterating that the Roadmap Council is a contact point for support if your project requires resources and support
  • Agreed, that would be a good first step
• General agreement about what the Roadmap Council is
  • Alignment between community project roadmaps
  • Coordinating between various institutions in order to reduce redundancy where possible
    • Once a Community Manager role is filled, Roadmap Council would support and assist the Manager
• Branding Change
  • Council sounds a bit authoritative
  • "Roadmap" in the singular implies that there is a single Roadmap for the community
  • Currently, one proposed alternative is "Roadmaps Alignment Group"
  • Also, perhaps we may charter this as a phased Working Group
    • Perhaps we also state explicitly in the charter that we are not responsible for a single roadmap
    • Working Group might not be the ideal structure, as Interest Groups and Working Groups do eventually come to an end
    • The Core Component Maintenance WG is a recurring WG which recharters on an annual basis using different phases
      • We expect that the Component Maintenance WG will always continue, just with updated charters and new phases
    • Still, down the line, one could technically choose to close the Working Group in the distant future
    • Originally, Interest Groups were meant for loosely-organized discussions, where Working Groups were meant to be project-specific
      • This could be envisioned as an Executive Council, as this still holds more administrative authority
      • Roadmap Council can still revisit the charter and see about borrowing certain aspects of the Core Component Maintenance WG
      • Perhaps adopting the policy of rotation of leadership from other IGs or WGs can be explored
  • There is still going to be a subtext where some members may ask for a single community Roadmap, even if there is a branding change and update to the charter
• Roadmap Council needs to understand how they can help the Community Manager
  • Community Manager should also have an explicit understanding of what is expected of them (with regards to the Roadmap Council)
  • Perhaps a small description of this dynamic could be helpful for advertising this role
    • Because this is a distributed job, it is going to be a challenge to meet with and explore the needs of each IG, WG, and institutional member
• Should the Council rebrand?
  • Just changing the name might not address all of the problems encountered by the Roadmap Council
    • Perhaps another internal Roadmap Council meeting is first needed before the next steps are determined
  • Though there has never been a reserved seat for the Roadmap Council on Steering, have a liaison or common member has always been of extreme assistance
    • This can be evaluated after the elections, as the candidates themselves need to be assessed
    • Agreed, this was extremely valuable
• How should Steering discuss the role of the Roadmap Council with Partners during the next call?
  • Further, how should resource concerns and questions be addressed?
  • Two items have been prioritized
    • What is the Roadmap Council/where is the roadmap?
    • Resourcing is important, but this wasn't addressed due to time constraints
      • There was a survey issued by the Roadmap Council to identify where resources are needed
      • This is a separate issue from what is intended to be discussed during the July Partners call
        • Intention is to review the survey results, and to identify the next steps to be taken
        • Less for resourcing, and more concerned with institutional roadmaps, and how alignment can be achieved
    • Some felt that this is exactly the right order, as this information is needed before resource allocation can be approached
  • It would still be useful to consider discussing resourcing concerns for the July Partners call
    • Hyrax community work may require further resources as it continues
    • All of these "asks" do happen on their own, and we should please try to consider requesting that interested parties try to attend Roadmap Council meetings
    • (All agreed with this)

Meeting adjourned at 10:02PDT/13:02EDT

Action items