2020-12-16 Meeting Notes

5 mins

Roll Call

@Brittany Newberry (Unlicensed)

Ice Breaker: Favorite thing about winter/the holidays?

UAC Updates

@Brittany Newberry (Unlicensed)

TAC/UAC Leadership meeting on February 10 at 11 am EST

• Meeting to discuss leadership within the councils

  • Plan to discuss ideas for improvement, including how to recruit people to serve as subteam leads

• Asking that all sub-team leaders/co-leads attend

• Other council members are welcomed to attend, especially those interested in leadership roles

• Email will be sent out with calendar invite and more information, and a link to a survey

Joint TAC/UAC meeting tentatively scheduled for March, announcement will be sent out

5 mins

Program Update

@Christine Di Bella

• Program is working on version 3.0, which focuses on revisions to the Agents module

  • Had hoped that it would be out by end of the year, but are still working on quashing bugs found during testing

• Work is also being done to update the application documentation in areas affected by the updates

• A webinar will be held on January 13 (either as a preview or concurrent with the release). Jessica Crouch will send out more information in advance

• Also received approval from the Board for a diversity partnership, based on discussions over the summer and fall about addressing diversity and equity issues

  • Program will be taking applications from underrepresented institutions (e.g., HBCU or tribal archives) for introductory memberships or other assistance

10 mins

Sub-team Reports

Development Prioritization

@Daniel Michelson

• Reviewed 16 tickets: 7 passed, 4 closed, 5 require further input

• Next meeting in early January, expect to continue on in a similar manner

• Will plan on having something go out in the ArchivesSpace program’s monthly update next time with updates

Users Documentation

@Krista Oldham (Unlicensed)

@Johanna Carll

• Began working on revising the User Manual for v3.0 updates

  • Took a different approach for revisions due to heavy focus on Agents module, sharing responsibility across subteam members (each working on 2-3 pages)

• Timeline for updates is end of day on December 18th, but definitely before the release candidate and the webinar

Testing

@Joshua Shaw

• Tested the updated Agents module, including agents create, update, delete, exports, imports, and relationships to other objects

• Expecting additional testing for release in the coming year

Usability

@Lori Dedeyan

@Althea Topek

• Created new document compiling tickets needing community feedback, closed and in-progress tickets; reviewed 3 new tickets;

• Planning to use a Google form to solicit community feedback on usability issues

• Received feedback on some of the tickets previously returned to Dev-Pri, working on establishing workflow returning feedback

Member Engagement

@Regina Carra

@Brittany Newberry (Unlicensed)

• Deadline for Code of Conduct feedback was December 11 – received 3 responses, 1 suggestion.

• Continued work on Member Match program, including developing questions for the application and drafting expectations for participants

  • Working to develop plans for sustaining the Member Match program to make sure that annual transitions in subteam leadership do not impact program

30 mins

Discussion

Users Documentation sub-team: @Johanna Carll (Unlicensed) @Krista Oldham (Unlicensed)

Participants commented on the questions below provided by the User Doc subteam:

1. How do you use the User Manual? Who is the audience of the User Manual?

• Noted that manual was used for implementing new features, but once things are in production staff rely instead on tooltip features. They have also developed their own local manual based on the ArchivesSpace project documentation for institutional use

• Noted that many institutions use their own local implementation guides--which may need to be taken into account when considering the documentation’s audience

• Noted that the ArchivesSpace documentation was particularly useful for reference and for new features

• Noted that the Testing Subteam used the manual to verify how the system was designed to be used, necessary even if institutions use local implementation guides

• Noted that even in cases where local documentation is used, users may still be encouraged to use the ArchivesSpace documentation

• Noted that local administrators or descriptive coordinators often used the documentation

• Noted that it was used for developing training materials (especially the glossary) to be sure that vocabulary and local documentation is consistent

• Noted that the documentation could be used by a broad audience, and that it should be accessible to anyone who decides to use it

• Noted that the documentation does not deal heavily with archival/procedural/conceptual training, which may require institutions to develop local processing guides that incorporate ArchivesSpace

• Noted that it is beneficial that it does not heavily reference DACS or other descriptive standards, allowing greater flexibility and use of application

2. What areas of improvement do you think are needed in the User Manual?

• Noted that in some places the text could be supplemented by short tutorials, perhaps by linking out to the training videos portion of the manual

• Noted that there may be issues with maintaining video tutorials, leading them to be out-of-date

  • Suggested that this could be addressed with notes on version being demonstrated in the video

3. Are there pages that need to be updated?

• Noted that community members are allowed to comment on page content if it is out of date, and comment sections are being watched

  • Some questions about whether the community is aware community of this feature

• Noted that it could be helpful to make commenting feature more visible in the manual itself (currently a subheading on introductory page)

• Noted that outreach to the community to encourage use of commenting feature might be useful

4. How do people use the glossary? Who uses the glossary?

• Noted that the move from PDF to the Confluence site made linking to specific terms in the glossary harder

• Some questions about what should be included in the ArchivesSpace glossary compared to something like the SAA Dictionary (https://dictionary.archivists.org/)

5. Is there a way for the User Doc team to get more advanced notification of needed changes to the User Manual due to version releases?

• Noted that for some releases, significant work is needed to meet needs (e.g., v3.0)

• Noted that streamlining communication between subteams such as Dev-Pri, Testing, and User Doc would ensure that the User Doc team is aware of upcoming changes

  • Testing team also noted that it has fairly short notice of features to check, so not sure that is enough of a time frame either

• Suggested that the program could look at updating roadmap so that UAC can make assignments and provide resources if needed

Group would be glad to get any additional feedback, if anyone would like to reach out to them.

10 mins

Other Business

Next Meeting

Jan 20, 2021 at 1 PM ET (may reschedule if needed)

Usability sub-team will lead discussion