2022-04-20 Meeting notes

The meeting recording is available for download in the OT Shared Google Folder, which you can access using this link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1p7GnhOpL8DxpVJbS94A2VTgpJPlY5LMm?usp=sharing

Updates - from All-Chairs, Leadership Group, etc.

Provide updates from other SILS meetings

3 mins

Tom

• OA Resource Management Project Team

  • We’ll talk about this more in detail later in the meeting

  • DOC wants to bring this group into the Operations Cohort and this group will be reporting to OT

• UCOP Stats/Analytics

  • Leadership Group is aware and agree that we need to do something about the analytics discussion

  • Two things going on - the system piece, which is in ExL’s hands, and we are trying really hard to push them to get things fixed; then there is also our requirement to produce statistics for our annual statistics

    • The second part is what we have more control over, in terms of what we can do

  • OT asked LG to escalate this up to DOC and identify ways to find a solution

• ExL Support Call has been pushed back

  • One of the main things we wanted to talk about was the QA of the April release, which broke several things that were major for us

    • ExL’s response was that they needed to go back to development and get more information and get some stakeholders involved

  • Meeting has been postponed until April 27-28, with main topic as April release

    • Hopefully we can get more information from them, and get them on a better path when it comes to these releases

Q & A Session - Including Questions on Slack since last meeting

Any questions from the team?

Questions from Slack?

1 min

Team

• No questions to discuss from Slack or from the team

Topics or questions for the Ex Libris Support Meeting

Any topics or questions that should be addressed at the next monthly Ex Libris Support Meeting?

3 mins

Team

• Meeting has been postponed until April 27-28, with main topic as April release

• Any other topics to discuss?

  • Analytics is the main pressing thing for all of us

  • In the May release for Primo, they will be migrating to another version of Angular

    • It’s still on a version that will be eventually sunsetting

    • Jackie brought this to Discovery, but bringing it here too because it’s something to consider in the long-term

    • Would be good to bring this to the developers network, or whoever would be the advocates for that with ExL

    • Will ask about this at the next ExL Support Meeting, but also look into this with the developers network as well

UCOP Statistics and Analytics

Continue discussion from previous meeting; determine next steps

19 mins

Team

• LG is in agreement that we need to find an alternative

  • LG wants to support the staff through their concerns and fears

  • They will escalate up to DOC and identify ways to find solution

• LG wants us to continue to have discussions on problems and issues with ExLibris on reporting, statistics, and analytics

• LG would like OT to be more precise in what we are asking for and what we can produce

  • Where are we seeing the problems? What reports might be hindered? What can we produce given the situation?

    • This way, they can maybe reduce the amount of reporting each campus would need to do

• LG is going to push back to see if there is a possibility of forgoing the reporting for this year, but that doesn’t sound like it’s going to be an option, we probably will have to do some reporting, so they want to know what they could get from campuses

• From Sarah: When UCSC went live with Alma, they had a couple of years where stats didn’t match the year before, and it took time to clean up their Alma data so that they could properly run analytics

  • They asterisked those statistics and gave a caveat about migrating systems and the effect that had on their data, for a couple of years

  • UCSC now has an analytics dashboard for UCOP statistics, and Sarah would be happy to share this with recently migrated campuses

    • The dashboard is tailored to UCSC data, but there is probably parts of it that are universal and parts that can be adapted to each campus' data

      • If this is where we are headed

    • It took UCSC a while to figure out how to get the UCOP stats out of Alma, and there are some stats that can’t be collected from Alma

      • This is the conversation Sarah would like to see happen; What are we collecting, and why are we collecting them? Because some of the things they’re asking for are not capturable and are soft stats

        • If we can tell them this, maybe that stat can be reworked, so it is a number that can be replicated

      • UCSC has set-up dashboards that pull from different analytics reports for the different stats they have to report to different organizations

    • All of the already-Alma campuses probably have some version of what UCSC has set-up; so in terms of skipping stats all together, not sure if UCSC feels the need to skip stats all together

      • Maybe just the new to Alma campuses can note that their stats will be off for a couple of years

• From Caitlin: SILS Ops Center, especially Gem, is doing a write-up on the overall status of Analytics

  • Status Report: Analytics in the SILS (April 2022)

  • If folks from OT want to add in, or if SILS Ops Center needs to pass this work to OT in some way, let Caitlin know

  • Alison Ray has also noted that many of the statistics that are being requested in the Resource Sharing category, aren’t currently being collected in Alma and it’s always difficult to pull these numbers together

    • Even if we do get Alma up to speed, campuses will still need to be pulling from spreadsheets and other places to try to get certain numbers

  • OT-SC will also be pursuing more info with Danielle Watters-Westbrook at CDL

    • Danielle is hiring a system-wide data analyst position that will live at CDL, and this position will be responsible for revamping the UCOP statistics process

      • Find out why these numbers are being asked for, what do they mean, what do they want, where are they coming from, are there better questions to be asking, etc.

    • This year, is going to be the last year of the battle of UCOP statistics, as they stand

      • This is part of the reason we are having this conversation with LG right now

  • To Sarah’s question, in the future we should have a vote about what numbers are useful, and what numbers are easily collectible

    • But that’s not this year; this year we just need to crank something out

  • Therefore, we write this write-up, and since it isn’t feasible to skip stats this year, perhaps we ask LG to advocate for a reduction in scope

    • If we can focus on just what can be pulled out of Alma, that will likely be more feasible

    • Being clear on the ask is important, and asking for us to not have to dig around, just produce what we can produce for this year

      • From Sarah:

        • A lot of the schedules have been static this year, due to various reasons; this has been a strange FY

        • If we could get to a point where we are just reporting what can be pulled out of Alma, this seems more doable

        • Even though our collections, structures, and metadata is different, we should try to all produce the same kind of report, because that’s the whole point of us being a consortia

          • If they can share an analytic with us and we run it, that would be best, based on data we have

    • Part of what Gem, Alison, and Caitlin have been working on is to really clarify how the NZ analytics is failing us, so we can take that very specific conversation to ExL and say this is not meeting our needs in these articulatable ways

• LG is requesting that OT look to previous Alma campuses to find alternatives and limitations to what can be produced, with the thought of, limited / inaccurate data might be considered better than none

  • Sarah will lead a group for building a training/webinar for the cohort, on how to get some of the UCOP statistics pulled from Alma - similar to what we did for printing; an analytics roundup

    • Ramon, Lakshmi, and any of the other already-Alma campuses can reach out to Sarah to assist with this group

    • Timeline would be in Late May

    • This group can also contact Caitlin, to assist the SILS Ops Center with the write-up their doing on the overall status of Analytics

• From Jackie: Concern about how we’ll deal with RLF stats, but it will be okay

  • Should also share this with Caitlin’s team to make sure it’s in the write-up

Proposal for a SILS GitHub from the Discovery OST/SILS Ops Center

Discuss proposal and vote on how to move forward

5 mins

Tom / Team

• Any thoughts or comments on the proposal?

• From the SILS Ops Center pov: they wanted advisory from OT on who could join the SILS GitHub

  • Any UC Libraries staff member with an appropriate business need may join the account, whether a SILS Cohort member or not

    • How SILS Ops Center will assess the appropriate business need, not sure; this shouldn’t hold up approving the proposal but having a clear process such as a set of criteria, would be helpful

  • The process for adding folks would be, upon request by the chair of the relevant SILS group/team, the SILS Operation Center would invite individuals to join the SILS Organization account

    • Caitlin can further work out the processes as the SILS Ops Center tries what is in the proposal; can work out the details as they go

  • This sounds good initially, but will likely be an iterative process

• Did a fist of five vote, and everyone was in agreement with moving forward with this proposal

• Next Steps:

  • Caitlin will let Gem know that the proposal for a SILS GitHub has been approved, and that she can now take the lead on making this happen and coordinate with the Discovery Operations Subteam

    • Once it is in place, OT will make a cohort wide announcement explaining the purpose and how to use it

Open Access Resource Management Project Team handoff

Review the recommendation from Leadership Group regarding the creation of the DOC requested OA Resource Management Project Team

12 mins

Tom

• We need to discuss and begin the process of assigning a Project Team for OA Resource Management as requested by DOC

  • Who should be on the team?

  • How should they communicate back to OT?

  • Link to the draft charge sent by Tom via Slack

    • Reviewed what is in the draft charge

• What is the ask here? Is it just an approval, or is there more work that needs to be done?

  • OT needs to make sure we understand what is being asked of this group and how and what they’ll be reporting, since they will be reporting to OT

    • OT also needs to consider if there is anything that should be added to this draft charge

  • Is OT taking on the process of notifying the proposed members? Or has that already been taken care of?

    • Seems like this is already been taken care of

  • OT’s job is to look this over, make sure it looks good and be aware of it; otherwise this group is ready to go and organize themselves

• Any questions?

  • Do they chose their own Chair? And will they need an orientation or kick-off?

    • OT might want to have a kick-off for them; Caitlin can take on the logistical piece of getting the group rolling

  • What is this groups relationship to the Digital Collections Project Team?

    • The Digital Collections Project Team is handling some things, but UCB had a whole process for submitting their dissertations to Proquest that went to Merit that went to e-Scholarship that made them discoverable; and now this isn’t so much the case, and it's this pipeline that we better want to understand and make them discoverable in e-Scholarship, since they’re OA

      • So two separate dissertation streams; and this is different from what the Digital Collections Project Team is working on

  • Should we call out the particular groups this project team will be consulting with?

    • Discovery, Digital Collections Project Team, etc. Not just "Everybody"

    • Would be nice to call out the specific groups this project team will be consulting with

• Next Steps:

  • Tom will make a copy of the OA Resource Management Project Team draft charge and put it in our OT Drive Folder so that folks can make comments, edits, suggestions, etc.

  • Goal would be to discuss the draft charge asynchronously between now and the next meeting, and have final discussion and approval of the charge at or by the next OT meeting

Update from Jackie and Jeremy re: Dissertations and Proquest

Review write-up and discuss/determine next steps

8 mins

Jackie / Jeremy

• Jackie and Jeremy met last week to draft this question/impact statement to ask the new SILS OA Resource Management Project Team to take a look at this issue

  • UCB is getting a lot of questions about this locally; were counting a bit more on e-scholarship containing more dissertations than it does

  • Workflow depends on campus, but UCB used to do some work behind the scenes before sending their dissertations to Merit

  • Have some questions to consider; want them to be more discoverable in UC Library Search and also for them to think about whether it’s possible to have campus affiliation with the dissertations

    • Ones they’ve seen say e-scholarship instead of Berkeley

• A number of identified issues and questions for this project team to consider; main ones are included in the write-up, but if anyone has others, let Jackie or Jeremy know

• The aim for this would be to pass it onto the OA Resource Management Project Team; they don’t have a work handoff and this would be something for them to look at

• This looks really well written; might want to get the team going first, and then add this to their plate

• The RM group also has Proquest Dissertations on their list of things to do; isn’t marked as super high priority, but might be good to take this off their plate or reduce/clarify the scope for the RM group, etc.

  • Could take this draft write-up to All Chairs next week, to confirm whether any other groups are looking into this topic

  • OA group would probably be the best group to work on this topic, but would be good to check-in with other groups to make sure duplicative work isn’t being done

• Next Steps:

  • Tom will take the UC Dissertations in UC Library Search write-up to All Chairs and let them know OT is consolidating this with with OARM, and get everyone’s feedback on that

Discuss System/Component Down Communication Path

Review and discuss notes from document and updating format to decision tree

5 mins

Jackie/ Team

• Discussed this document a while ago, there was a request to change the formatting of the document into a decision tree

  • Jackie has a rough draft to share with folks; would appreciate any input, or thoughts / feedback about how to make it more useable or comprehensible

    • Needs a legend; was trying to make it more general with the same color coding as the System/Component Down Communication Path document

  • Jackie moved the decision tree draft document to the OT Shared folder so that folks can look at it and update it asynchronously

• Next Steps:

  • Everyone take a look at the rough draft and feel free to edit, move things around, etc. to help make it more useable, before our next meeting

  • Jackie will also keep working on it prior to our next meeting

Internal Training / Training Documentation Hub

Update from All-Chairs

4 mins

Tom

• At the last All Chairs meeting, talked about where to put workflow documents and resurrecting the Training Hub

• Decision was to leave old stuff where it is, and make a new place called the Documentation Hub and all chairs will work to bring in current decisions and any type of current policies or best practices; essentially all currently applicable stuff will live in a new place called the Documentation Hub

  • The SILS Ops Center and Caitlin have an action item to get this page started on Confluence

  • In the meantime, the teams will be using the cohort email to send out large scale announcements or documents they want to share

Executive Session

Private discussion as needed

Parking Lot

Capture important topics for future discussion

• Taking the Temperature Survey

  • Discuss Responses from Survey, particularly the What worries you? and What are you most excited about? sections

• Communication with Subteams, Cohort, and Campuses

• June NERS Voting - Need new committee to discuss next steps

• Need to create a page for System Down Reporting

• Internal Training / Training Documentation Hub

60 mins