2019-05-29 Documentation meeting notes

LYRASIS Update:

• Possible documentation update workflows
• New documentation platform

With the release of 2.6.0 and human-readable URLs, the user manual needs to be updated with a new section. This prompted ASpace to discuss how the Documentation sub-team should have this information filtered to them – here are the changes, here is what needs to be added to the user manual, etc.

The new release comes out tomorrow so the human-readable URL information has been added already; going forward we need a process for this.

The documentation is served on Madcap Flare, which only runs on Windows machines, and only one person (Jessica) has access to the application. This makes it difficult for the team to update the documentation because everything has be filtered through the Community Engagement Coordinator.

ArchivesSpace is in the process of moving the member directory to a WordPress site; this could also, potentially, host https://docs.archivesspace.org. We could also use Confluence to host the user manual. Jessica would like the subteam to discuss this.

Options:

• WordPress
• Confluence
• Github
• Something else? Ideas from the team are welcome.

The member directory will be announced at the user forum; we don't necessarily need to have the new documentation site ready by then, but it would be ideal to have a plan by then.

Kevin will schedule a meeting with the group for late June/early July; it would be good for a larger group to discuss the future of the documentation platform.

Jessica asked what working relationship the subteam has with the Community Engagement Coordinator. In general we make recommendations for updates to be made by the Community Engagement Coordinator. Brittany noted that she hears about new features early because of her work on the Testing team, but if that information doesn't filter down to the Documentation subteam, it's hard to keep the documentation completely up to date.

The old documentation review page (where we assigned sections) is where we'll compile notes for Jessica to review. Kevin will copy/paste the notes from the April meeting over there; individual committee members are encouraged to add any comments, screenshots, etc. not present in the April notes to that page.

Later in June we'll compile notes and organize the document better, then pass it along to Jessica.

Some discussion questions that came up between this section of the agenda and the one before it:

• Jessica asked if the assigned sections in our 2019 documentation review would become assigned sections that, going forward, each committee member was responsible for keeping updated (either channeled through Jessica or directly in a new documentation system). Kevin thought so, and added that it would be good to assign sections in that way so that if a new release required updates to a section, and its assigned caretaker was unable to do so, it would be easier to delegate that work elsewhere in the subteam.
• Brittany asked if we should do reviews yearly, or if we should coordinate documentation updates around new releases. The group agreed that coordinating around new releases made more sense. Communication with other subteams and with LYRASIS (to identify key sections in need of maintenance, based on the list of new features and bug fixes being released) will be important if we approach documentation management that way.