Names Project Plan V.0.5 Nov01

Names in Context (Nic) The Arrow NicNames Project DRAFT Project Plan Project Project Title

Names in Context: The Arrow NicNames Project

Start Date Project Manager Lead Institution

September 2008 End Date Stuart Hall Swinburne University of Technology Swinburne University of Technology

Partner Institutions

University of New South Wales

Project Web URL

University of Newcastle http://names.wikidot.com/ (Project Wiki; closed access initially) http://nicnamesproject.blogspot.com/ (Project blog) Teula Morgan (Swinburne), Tom Ruthven (UNSW), Vicki Picasso (Newcastle)

Project Board

March 2009

Document Document Title

Project Plan

Author & project role

Stuart Hall, Project Manager 01 Nov 2008

Date

Filename

NamesProjectPlan_v.0.5_Nov01.doc

URL Access

Public draft document

Document History Version

Date

Comments

0.1

2008-09-30

SH Draft

0.2

2008-10-03

Includes amendments from Board meeting 30/09/2008

0.3

2008-10-10

Includes work plans

0.4

2008-10-21

Further amendments

0.5

2008-11-01

Public Draft

Page 1 of 20 ARROW Names project: DRAFT Project Plan Last updated: 30/10/2008 1:35 PM

Arrow Names Project Draft Project Plan Date: 30 October 2008

Table of Contents Project Plan.........................................................................................................................................................3 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................3 2 Aims and objectives...............................................................................................................................3 3 Scope.....................................................................................................................................................3 4 Project outputs.......................................................................................................................................3 5 Project outcomes ...................................................................................................................................3 6 Project Plan ...........................................................................................................................................3 6.1 Project management.....................................................................................................................4 6.2 Review of global developments with respect to the management of names ................................4 6.3 Stakeholder requirements analysis ...............................................................................................4 6.4 Institutional analysis ......................................................................................................................4 6.5 Schema, formats and standards analysis .....................................................................................4 6.6 System specification .....................................................................................................................5 6.7 Development of guidelines toolkit and documentation..................................................................5 6.8 Specification and development of name management tool(s)......................................................5 6.9 Implementation, testing, feedback and review of guidelines and tools in partner institutions.......5 6.10 Evaluation .....................................................................................................................................5 6.11 Release .........................................................................................................................................5 7 Stakeholder analysis..............................................................................................................................5 8 Risk analysis ..........................................................................................................................................6 9 Quality assurance ..................................................................................................................................6 10 Licensing................................................................................................................................................7 11 Communication......................................................................................................................................7 12 Sustainability..........................................................................................................................................7 13 Work Plans ............................................................................................................................................9

Page 2 of 20 ARROW Names project: DRAFT Project Plan Last updated: 30/10/2008 1:35 PM

Arrow Names Project Draft Project Plan Date: 30 October 2008 Project Plan

1

Introduction

This project seeks to provide a means to effectively manage author names in institutional repositories. In the first instance this means the repositories of the three participating institutions, but with the intention of developing tools which would be useful to the broader ARROW community. To do so will require the development of at least part of an authority system similar to that used in the library world, but with differences arising from the exclusively digital and finer grained nature of repository holdings and from the nature of activities around repositories as well as their wider, national and global, context. The principal project deliverables are expected to include either the identification or the development of a schema suitable for the management of names within a repository context and an application or tool which will assist repository managers to disambiguate and manage variant author name forms. 2

Aims and objectives

To assist institutional repository managers to more effectively manage author and institutional names by providing a platform independent practical toolkit, consisting of guidelines and open source tools, which will help with the effective identification, disambiguation, matching and display of names. 3

Scope

This project is intended to develop methods and tools for dealing with personal names of research active university staff only. It is not intended to address either corporate body names or subjects. Nor is it about access or authorisation with respect to university systems. The project is only intended to help resolve issues with respect to multiple forms of author names within university repositories. The project will also be constrained by its fixed budget and by an expectation that the project will complete by the end of March. It may be further constrained by wanting to produce platform independent products. 4 a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h. i. j. k. 5

Project outputs A project plan; A review of global developments classified by possible use; A stakeholder requirements analysis; An institutional analysis; An analysis of relevant schema and standards; A system specification; A guidelines toolkit; One or more open source applications/tools; An implementation plan; A project evaluation report with recommendations for further action; A release plan. Project outcomes

The outcomes of this project will be focussed on providing assistance with better management of author and institutional names within institutional repositories consistent with developing global practice and standards. This will then assist users of repositories to more easily find all works by a particular author and give repository contributors more confidence when contributing their work. 6

Project Plan

The project plan will outline a number of distinct tasks as follows; Page 3 of 20 ARROW Names project: DRAFT Project Plan Last updated: 30/10/2008 1:35 PM

Arrow Names Project Draft Project Plan Date: 30 October 2008 a. b. c. d. e.

Project management tasks A review of the global state of play in relation to name authorities; Stakeholder requirements analysis; Institutional analysis; An analysis of the various schema and standards which are either being developed or already exist and which might be suitable for the project purposes; f. System specification; g. Development of guidelines toolkit and documentation; h. Development of name management applications/tools; i. Implementation, testing, feedback and review of toolkit and tools within project partner institutions; j. Project evaluation and recommendations; k. Release of guidelines and tools to wider community. 6.1 Project management Under the direction of the project board, the project manager will write the project plan and manage its execution, provide regular reporting on progress and write an evaluation at project completion. 6.2 Review of global developments with respect to the management of names The UK Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) funded Names Project has recently completed a review (see http://names.mimas.ac.uk/documents/LandscapeReport26Jun2008.pdf ) which broadly covers the requirements of this project. For our purposes however, the review will be extended to incorporate a more comprehensive listing of relevant standards, formats and name authority management guidelines. This data will then be analysed and classified according to how it might be useful to the project. 6.3 Stakeholder requirements analysis The project partners will each have views about the nature of the project and the outcomes desired, as will other members of the ARROW consortium and community. There are also a number of other key national players who will have an interest or stake in the outcome of the project. It may be that these players and stakeholders will be in broad agreement about the project, but it is more likely that there will be a diversity of views. It is therefore important to consult widely, but to then clearly articulate the problem and how the project will seek to resolve it. For this reason, it is proposed that a stakeholder requirements analysis be undertaken, which will document the requirements of the various players and, if possible, a consensus as to what the project should do. It is expected that, in the first instance, this will involve a business analyst interacting with repository managers in each of the three partner institutions to clearly determine their current and desired business processes. This would then be used as the basis of discussion with other stakeholders and firmed up as a set of requirements expected from the project. 6.4 Institutional analysis Institutional repositories operate within the context of their home institutions and need to interact with the systems extant within those institutions. It will therefore be necessary to analyse the various institutional contexts in order to develop a clear understanding of the local constraints within which the project and its products will operate. 6.5 Schema, formats and standards analysis The stakeholder requirements analysis (and the review) should result in a clear picture of what the project should aim to achieve (beyond broad objectives). This then will provide the basis for more a detailed and focussed analysis of the various schema, formats and standards which could be implemented by the project and for making decisions about which should be used and how. It may be that, at this stage, some specification of how a schema will be used is needed and should be completed before proceeding. Page 4 of 20 ARROW Names project: DRAFT Project Plan Last updated: 30/10/2008 1:35 PM

Arrow Names Project Draft Project Plan Date: 30 October 2008 This should be done taking into account national and international developments revealed by the review of global developments as an indication of the directions the international community is taking name authorities. 6.6 System specification Once the underlying foundation is well understood, a system specification should be developed, setting out how repository business processes will need to be adapted to use the outcomes of the project. This will probably have four components; a. b. c. d.

Specifying the various input and output process flows; Specifying the data mapping and transformations required; Specifying storage requirements and how such storage fits within existing repository structures; Specifying operations which require human intervention and those which can be automated.

6.7 Development of guidelines toolkit and documentation A significant part of the project deliverables will be documentation setting out how to modify repository business practices to achieve better management of names in a sustainable way. This should be developed based on the foundation and specification work previously undertaken. 6.8 Specification and development of name management tool(s) Software specification and development of the tools identified in the system specification. It is envisaged that a suite of tools will be needed to, for instance, analyse names in existing repositories and to provide interoperability with external (and internal university) bodies 6.9 Implementation, testing, feedback and review of guidelines and tools in partner institutions While the toolkit documentation and tools are being completed, an implementation and testing plan will be developed. Each of the partner institutions will then participate by implementing the new procedures and using the tools. A testing, bug fix/upgrade cycle will be established until the products reach an acceptable release standard. 6.10

Evaluation

Once the project deliverables have reached an operational standard, an evaluation report will be prepared with a view to determining whether they are of a standard which could be released to the wider repository community. Any recommendations for further action will also be documented at this stage. Further work may then be required to prepare products for release. 6.11

Release

A release plan will be prepared and implemented. 7

Stakeholder analysis

Stakeholder ARROW Project Project partner institutions Repository managers Researchers End users NLA: People Australia Australian National Data Service (ANDS) Australian Access Federation (AAF) CAUL/CAIRS MACAR Fed Government: DIISR Fed Government: DEEWR

Interest/Stake Parent project and funding body Possible early adopters Better quality service More effective dissemination of research output Improved resource discovery Acquiring and supplying researcher data Have similar but much broader objectives Have parallel but different objectives Possible site support for project outcomes Strong interest in metadata for repositories ANDS funding body Formerly DEST; ARROW funding body

Importance High High High Medium Medium High High Low Medium High Medium Low

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Arrow Names Project Draft Project Plan Date: 30 October 2008 Elsevier: Scopus Thomson: ISI Web of Knowledge 8

Commercial database provider; name forms Commercial database provider; ResearcherID

Risk analysis

Risk Project products and recommendations not adopted by repository community

Probability Medium

Impact High

Project not able to produce satisfactory products

Low

High

Global developments invalidate project outcomes

Medium

Medium

Project partners unable to agree on outcomes

Low

High

Insufficient time to satisfactorily complete project

Medium

Medium

Key personnel move on and can’t be replaced

Low

Medium

9

High High

Management • Work closely with partner institutions repository managers throughout the project; • Communicate project directions and outcomes to the wider repository community; • Negotiate with CAIRSS to adopt project outcomes; • Develop post project upgrade and maintenance program for project products. • Clearly articulate project goals; • Carefully specify project outcomes; • Ensure operational staff understand requirements and are adequately resourced. • Closely monitor national and international developments; • Try to anticipate future directions and/or make provision for the adoption of standards as they are produced. • Establish and maintain effective communication between project partners; • Address issues as they arise; • Manage expectations - be realistic about what the project can achieve. • Manage expectations; • Plan carefully, monitor progress and deploy extra resources if necessary; • Plan for post project product maintenance. • Carefully specify requirements; • Require well documented products.

Quality assurance

Product Project plan

Review and classification of

Criteria • Accurate reflection of intended project; • Adequate description of work requirements. • Comprehensiveness; • Useful classification.

Method Review by Project Board

Compliance Acceptance by Project Board

Peer review

Acceptance by Project Board

Responsibility

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Arrow Names Project Draft Project Plan Date: 30 October 2008 global developments Stakeholder and Institutional requirements analyses Schema and standards analysis

Clear and accurate articulation of stakeholder and institutional requirements.

Peer review

Acceptance by Project Board

Peer review

Acceptance by Project Board

Peer review, review by Project Board

Acceptance by Project Board

Peer review

Implementation plan

• Comprehensiveness; • Clear articulation of purpose of schema or standard and where it might fit with respect to the Names Project. • System specified will meet stakeholder requirements; • Specifications sufficient to enable guidelines toolkit and applications/tools to be produced. • Level of usability; • Use leads to desired outcome. • Level of usability; • Use leads to desired outcome. Likely to lead to a successful implementation.

Acceptance by Project Board Acceptance by Project Board Acceptance by Project Board

Evaluation report

Comprehensiveness.

Release plan

Likely bring products to the attention to repository managers at least Australia wide.

System specification

Guidelines toolkit Applications/tools

Peer review Review by Project Board Review by Project Board Review by Project Board

Acceptance by Project Board Acceptance by Project Board

10 Licensing The chief project products; the guidelines toolkit and the applications/tools, will be released under open source and open documentation licences such as the Creative Commons (http://creativecommons.org.au/licences) or GNU (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl-howto.html) licences. 11 Communication Internal project communication will be by use of a closed Wiki (http://names.wikidot.com/), regular phone conference project board meetings and less regular face to face meetings. Communication with and reporting to the broader ARROW Project will be by normal ARROW reporting processes and documented through the ARROW web site. The public face of the project will, initially, through a project blog. This will be used to distribute a monthly project report for any participant to raise issues or report interesting findings. As the project becomes established, the Wiki will be opened up to public view, at least in part. 12 Sustainability Sustainability of the outcomes of the ARROW Names Project can be rolled into the broader issue of how to maintain the outcomes of the ARROW Project itself. This is being addressed by CAUL (Council of Australian University Librarians) by proposing to set up a body called the CAUL Australian Institutional Repositories Support Service (CAIRSS).

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Arrow Names Project Draft Project Plan Date: 30 October 2008 The principal issue for the Names Project will be how to maintain and continue to develop both the guidelines toolkit documentation and the software applications developed to accompany that toolkit, particularly in the context of rapidly changing global initiatives with respect to name authorities. However, promoting take up (perhaps by developing use cases) and monitoring changes in the environment (so the tools and guidelines can be adapted) will also be important. It will be necessary to address these issues as part of the project windup and handover process.

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Arrow Names Project Draft Project Plan Date: 30 October 2008

13 Work Plans Work Plan and Activities

Earliest Start Date

Latest Completion Date

Outputs

1. Write project plan.

15 Sep 2008

07 Nov 2008

• Project plan • Work plans

2. Monitor and report on project progress.

01 Nov 2008

27 Mar 2009

• Progress reports

Milestone

Responsibility

Task 1: Project management Objective: To ensure timely and well directed performance of the project activities

3. Monitor the project environment for possible links and synergies with other initiatives. 4. Write implementation plan.

• Implementation plan

5. Write evaluation report and prepare recommendations.

• Evaluation report • Recommendations

• Recommendations for further action.

Page 9 of 20 ARROW Names project: DRAFT Project Plan Last updated: 30/10/2008 1:35 PM

Arrow Names Project Draft Project Plan Date: 30 October 2008 Work Plan and Activities

Earliest Start Date

Latest Completion Date

Outputs

Milestone

Responsibility

Task 2: Review of global developments Objective: To develop a clear understanding of the global environment in which the project will be operating 6. Analyse the recent review for the JISC Names Project and prepare a preliminary classification of resources and developments. 7. Determine what additional global developments and resources need to be reviewed for this project and research them. 8. Classify and prioritise developments and resources as they relate to this project.

13 Nov 2008

•

Global and national name authority environment review.

•

Global and national name authority environment review.

•

Global and national name authority environment review. Classification and prioritisation of initiatives, developments and resources of importance to project.

•

Page 10 of 20 ARROW Names project: DRAFT Project Plan Last updated: 30/10/2008 1:35 PM

Arrow Names Project Draft Project Plan Date: 30 October 2008 Work Plan and Activities

Earliest Start Date

Latest Completion Date

Outputs

Milestone

Responsibility

Task 3: Stakeholder requirements analysis Objective: To develop a clear understanding as to the purpose(s) of the project and how it is expected to interact with other initiatives and organisations. 9. Interview repository managers in the three participating institutions to determine their requirements from the project. 10. Identify other organisations with a stake or interest in the project and ascertain their expectations from the project. 11. Articulate the problem that the project will seek to resolve and how, in broad terms, that will be achieved.

17 Nov 2008

•

Report on stakeholder requirements.

•

Report on stakeholder requirements.

• •

Report on stakeholder requirements. Recommendations as to how to satisfy stakeholder requirements.

Page 11 of 20 ARROW Names project: DRAFT Project Plan Last updated: 30/10/2008 1:35 PM

Arrow Names Project Draft Project Plan Date: 30 October 2008 Work Plan and Activities

Earliest Start Date

Latest Completion Date

Outputs

Milestone

Responsibility

Task 4: Institutional analysis Objective: To develop a clear understanding of the institutional environments within which the project will operate. 12. Analyse the various institutional systems with which repositories might need to interact. 13. Analyse how future developments might affect institutional systems. 14. Articulate, in broad terms, how project interaction with institutional systems should be handled.

17 Nov 2008

•

Report on institutional systems relating to names.

•

Report on institutional systems relating to names.

•

Report on institutional systems relating to names. Recommendations as to how to interact with institutional systems.

•

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Arrow Names Project Draft Project Plan Date: 30 October 2008 Work Plan and Activities

Earliest Start Date

Latest Completion Date

Outputs

Milestone

Responsibility

Task 5: Schema, standards and mapping analysis Objective: To identify current and developing standards, schema and mapping relating to names and determine how they might relate to the current project. 15. Analyse schema, standards and mappings (identified through the review) and determine how they might best be used by the current project. 16. Make recommendations as to how the preferred schema and mappings should be used.

•

Report on relevant schema, standards and mappings.

•

Recommendations as to which schema, standards and mappings should be applied to this project and how.

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Arrow Names Project Draft Project Plan Date: 30 October 2008 Work Plan and Activities

Earliest Start Date

Latest Completion Date

Outputs

Milestone

Responsibility

Task 6: System specification Objective: To fully the specify the systems and documentation to be developed by the project. 17. Specify the system functions, then how those functions are to be implemented. 18. Specify a database schema.

•

A system specification.

•

A fully specified name authority schema.

19. Specify input and output data flows and mappings.

•

Specifications for data flows and associated data mappings.

20. Specify applications and tools.

•

21. Specify user interfaces, including documentation and guidelines toolkit. 22. Specify any design constraints such as a need to adhere to applicable standards

• •

Software specifications for each tool and application identified in the system specification. User interfaces specifications. Documentation and guidelines specification. Description of design and development constraints.

•

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Arrow Names Project Draft Project Plan Date: 30 October 2008 Work Plan and Activities

Earliest Start Date

Latest Completion Date

Outputs

Milestone

Responsibility

Task 7: Development of guidelines toolkit Objective: Produce a set of recommendations and guidelines as to how to manage personal names within institutional repositories. 23. Generate a set of recommendations as to how best to deal with personal names within the particular context of Australian institutional repositories. 24. Develop a set of step by step procedures for dealing with personal names in institutional repositories. 25. Develop documentation and manuals for the project tools and applications.

•

Recommendations.

•

Guidelines.

• •

Documentation. Manuals.

Page 15 of 20 ARROW Names project: DRAFT Project Plan Last updated: 30/10/2008 1:35 PM

Arrow Names Project Draft Project Plan Date: 30 October 2008 Work Plan and Activities

Earliest Start Date

Latest Completion Date

Outputs

Milestone

Responsibility

Task 8: Development of applications and tools Objective: To develop tools and applications to harvest and submit name variants from/to a variety of sources and map them to/from a standard name authority format. 26. Develop a tool to harvest name variants from existing repositories and map them into a standard name authority format. 27. Develop a tool to harvest name variants from People Australia and map them into a standard name authority format. 28. Develop tools to harvest name variants from upstream commercial providers and map them into a standard name authority format. 29. Develop tools to harvest name variants from other institutional sources and map them into a standard name authority format

•

Bulk repository harvesting tool.

•

People Australia harvesting tool.

•

Commercial provider harvesting tools.

•

Institutional name data harvesting tool.

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Arrow Names Project Draft Project Plan Date: 30 October 2008 30. Develop an application to scan a name authority file and generate associations between name variants or flag possible associations for human review. 31. Develop tools to export consolidated name authority records, with mapping to upstream schema. 32. Develop an application to facilitate querying of a standard name authority database, with linking to source documents.

•

Name variant association application.

•

Name authority export tools.

•

Name authority query tool.

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Arrow Names Project Draft Project Plan Date: 30 October 2008 Work Plan and Activities

Earliest Start Date

Latest Completion Date

Outputs

Milestone

Responsibility

Task 9: Implementation, testing, feedback and review Objective: Test and refine the products by implementing them in the partner institutions along with a maintenance and upgrade regime. 33. Implement prototype application, tools and guidelines in partner institutions as they become available. 34. Establish a testing, feedback, maintain/upgrade/fix and review cycle for each tool and application. 35. Define product acceptance standards for each product and determine when an acceptable level of performance has been reached.

•

Implementation plan.

•

Bug reports, maintenance and upgrade requests. Documentation, manuals and guidelines edit requests. Improved tools, applications, documentation and guidelines. Product acceptance standards. ‘Finished’ products.

• • • •

Page 18 of 20 ARROW Names project: DRAFT Project Plan Last updated: 30/10/2008 1:35 PM

Arrow Names Project Draft Project Plan Date: 30 October 2008 Work Plan and Activities

Earliest Start Date

Latest Completion Date

Outputs

Milestone

Responsibility

Task 10: Project evaluation Objective: Determine whether the project achieved its objectives and what recommendations arose as to future activity. 36. Prepare a project evaluation report. 37. Prepare recommendation for further action.

•

Project evaluation report.

•

Recommendations.

Page 19 of 20 ARROW Names project: DRAFT Project Plan Last updated: 30/10/2008 1:35 PM

Arrow Names Project Draft Project Plan Date: 30 October 2008 Work Plan and Activities

Earliest Start Date

Latest Completion Date

Outputs

Milestone

Responsibility

Task 11: Release of guidelines and tools Objective: Facilitate the uptake of the project deliverables within the broader Institutional repository community. 38. Prepare a release strategy report. 39. Implement release strategy.

•

Release strategy.

•

Release ready deliverables.

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