2020-2021 Tech Docs Retrospective

Accomplishments this term:

  • Organized technical documentation by role/job function, in order to improve discovery of information relevant to different types of users

  • Worked with Lyrasis developers to begin implementation of Jekyll to build Tech Docs site from source files in Github repo, providing easier maintenance and improved user experience

  • Led a discussion session at the 2021 Online Forum covering the scope of available technical documentation resources and ways that the community can help improve and expand upon them

  • Began identifying areas of insufficient documentation and creating placeholders/stubs for them in the documentation Github repository

  • Facilitated incremental improvements to documentation through pull requests, issues and other input from the community and development team

Areas for potential improvement

  • While the team had a lot of good ideas for how to improve documentation, many remained unrealized simply because the work wasn’t properly delegated. It could work better if tasks were regularly assigned at each meeting.

  • It’s difficult to lead the meeting and also take notes, and the notes suffer. Note-taking responsibility should be delegated to the vice-lead.

Priorities for 2021-2022 term:

  • Solicit contributions to technical documentation from the ArchivesSpace community, prioritizing areas where placeholders have already been created

  • Complete implementation of Jekyll for technical documentation site

  • Take on administrative responsibilities for the API Documentation Ad Hoc Working Group, which will work in cooperation with the ArchivesSpace development team to improve API endpoint documentation

Leadership for 2021-2022 term:

Co-Leads: Alicia Detelich, Dave Mayo

Vice-lead: Rachel Searcy