Digital Electronic Library Integration within Virtual EnviRonments
Work Plan
Activities and Timetables |
Project Management | User Needs Analysis | Technical
Requirements | ANGEL Server Development | Customised
Tools and Interfaces
DEVIL Customised Tools and Interfaces | Institutional
Deployment | Project Governance
Activities and Timetable
The project will be implemented as five distinct main tasks:
User Needs Analysis
Technical Requirements Specification
ANGEL Server Development
Customised Tools and Interfaces
Institutional Deployment and Dissemination
In addition to these DELIVER will undertake continuous activities to ensure project/budget management, reporting, self-evaluation and dissemination, in accordance with current JISC guidance. Formal deliverables from these tasks are identified and timetabled below. DELIVER is linked with Project DEVIL (main partners University of Edinburgh and The Open University), in that both projects intend to use (and enable further development of) middleware tools developed by the JISC ANGEL Project.
Project Management, Reporting, Evaluation and Dissemination (PM)
A project involving significant technical development, but of such a short (10 month) timescale as DELIVER will dictate an efficient, but comparatively 'lightweight' approach to these overhead activities. Maximum advantage will be taken of synergies with the JISC 7/02 Programme, other JISC programmes, and other projects in which the partners are involved. In particular, external dissemination (i.e. apart from promotion to stakeholders within the partner institutions) will be undertaken where possible in collaboration with other projects, and evaluation will focus mainly on feedback of internal stakeholders. A consortium agreement will be made between the five partners in DELIVER, outlining the relationships between them and (in particular) conformance with current JISC protocols for financial management and ownership of intellectual property rights. The Projectplace online tool will be used as a collaborative working environment, and for planning more detailed task breakdown, and time-recording by project staff. A detailed task status report is appended to this plan, and similar reports exported from Projectplace at regular intervals will be preserved as 'snapshots' of progress. A website for public dissemination about DELIVER has been established within the ANGEL domain and basic information about the project has been published. This will also be used as a document repository (with public, but un-publicised access) for sharing non-confidential material amongst the wider group of institutional staff, associate partners and other specific interested parties, who do not have access to the Projectplace environment.
User Needs Analysis (UNA)
Separate analyses of user needs (including definition of target courses and staff/student groups on which DELIVER will focus) will be planned and carried out at LSE and DMU, producing a single report that will describe in end-user terms the required functionality that falls within the scope of the project. It is anticipated that the analysis may well reveal user requirements that fall outside the broad resource lists management scope of DELIVER and, as far as possible, these will also be documented in the report (identified as out-of-scope), and directed to other projects or institutional development work. The end-user groups to be involved will include students, teaching staff, learning technology support staff, and library staff.
Technical Requirements Specification (TRS)
Technical requirements (i.e. what solutions will be implemented to meet user needs, possibly limited by estimates of time and resources available) will be specified in terms of:
(a) functionality and interfaces that can be included in version-releases
of the core ANGEL servers, which will be released as installable packages,
and made available as test targets to the wider F/HE community;
(b) user interfaces and other functional components that are more specific
to the VLE, LMS and other aspects of local requirements at partner institutions;
these can also be made available to the wider community (and should be
free of any intellectual property constraints that encumber their wider
use), but are less likely to be immediately re-usable by other institutions.
This task will also be the initial point of convergence with the DEVIL project (which is undertaking a similar exercise to define user requirements), so that maximum advantage for both projects can be taken of likely common requirements. When DEVIL have concluded their own definition of requirements, a report on the feasibility of these (i.e. an estimate of what is achievable within available resources, as defined by the Service Level Agreement with DEVIL) will be produced. It is anticipated that Project DEVIL will fund a total of approximately 40 staff-days (280 staff-hours) of development work (subject to the service agreement to be negotiated with DEVIL, and assumptions of time required by DEVIL to assist with other activities, such as translation of DEVIL user requirements to technical specifications). When defined by the TRS, these will be specified as sub-tasks in the ASD and CTI tasks, and managed within the DELIVER project plan. Work that is specifically to meet requirements of DEVIL will be clearly identified as such, and monitored to ensure that it remains within the available budget.
ANGEL Server Development (ASD)
This task will develop new core functionality and M2M interfaces in ANGEL server components, and continue to manage the version release process already established by the ANGEL project. A total of 784 staff-hours (funded by DELIVER) has been estimated for this activity, which will be defined as more detailed sub-tasks when the TRS is completed.
Customised Tools and Interfaces (CTI)
This task will develop the user interfaces and any other required software components not included in ANGEL Server Development, and the integration between software developed within the project and third-party products (principally VLEs and LMSs). A total of 434 staff-hours has been estimated for this activity, which will be defined as more detailed sub-tasks when the TRS is completed.
DEVIL Customised Tools and Interfaces (DCT)
This task will develop the user interfaces and any other required software components not included in ANGEL Server Development, and the integration between software developed within the project and third-party products (principally VLEs and LMSs), as defined . A provisional total of 280 staff-hours (funded by DEVIL) has been estimated for this activity, which will be defined as more detailed sub-tasks when the TRS is completed.
Institutional Deployment and Dissemination (IDD)
The solutions developed by DELIVER will be made available on a trial basis (the "alpha/pilot system") for testing by the target courses and relevant staff before the end of the current academic year. Based on feedback from these trials, bugs will be fixed and refinements made during a second development phase, to produce a second ("beta system") release before the end of the project. The timing constraints of the JISC 7/02 Programme do not fit well with the likely availability of academic staff and students for any serious testing of the beta system; but testing by Library and VLE-support staff end-users will be possible at this time of the year. The project will finish in time for institutional decisions to be made about which features of DELIVER will be put into live use, and adoption of these into mainstream IT support ready for the following academic session. Workshops for academic staff will be held at LSE and DMU to promote use of the tools developed by DELIVER during the following session, and to encourage the preparation of consistent and high-quality reading/resource lists on a greater proportion of courses at each institution.
Project Governance Structure
Responsibility for delivery of the project to JISC will be through a Project Board on which institutional partners (DMU and LSE) and the Project Manager are represented. The full constitution and terms of reference of the Project Board, and relationships between institutional partners and commercial associate partners are set out in the Project Consortium Agreement, which will be supplied to JISC. It is anticipated that the Project Board will meet approximately every two months, with meetings normally chaired by the Project Director. Where possible, meeting dates and venues will be arranged to co-ordinate with other project-related events or meetings. As an alternative to face-to-face meetings, it may be possible to conduct some Project Board business by email, real-time online discussion, or tele-conferencing. This will also enable discussions to be accessible to others involved in the project, including commercial associate partners, whilst avoiding most logistics problems of larger meetings. In addition to their voting representative(s), partners will be encouraged to invite other members of their own staff or external experts as non-voting co-optees to Project Board meetings, depending on the items for discussion, when these people may provide useful input to (or critical evaluation of) particular topics. This is also seen as a mechanism for linking the project with ongoing 'mainstream' initiatives and developments in each partner institution. Operationally the Project Manager will have responsibility (to the Project Board) for resource and progress management, and will have delegated authority as specified in the Consortium Agreement for the project. However, for practical purposes there will also be some direct communication between the Project Manager and the JISC Programme Office, and reporting of delegated resources (and other line-management functions) to the Project Board by the various institutional line-managers involved. For the purposes of the project, there will need to be a pseudo line-management relationship between the Project Manager (who acts as the organisational line-manager for staff involved at LSE) and staff directly involved in DELIVER at the other partner institution. These details will be agreed by the Project Board at an early stage. An advisory Steering Committee will be recruited, representing a wider group of staff (including academic staff) from DMU and LSE, and each of the three commercial associate partners in DELIVER. It is anticipated that the Steering Committee will hold two meetings, in January and late-June 2003.