2015-04-30

Announcements

Jim mentioned that responses to DSG Project Toolkit proposals would be going out later in the week. Meetings with proposal authors are being scheduled in May (and potentially June). Sarah and Amanda recommended that library liaisons be CC'd on letters when relevant.

We also discussed a schedule for May's weekly DSG meetings. Specifically:

• 7th: Julia not here next week: our discussion will continue to flesh out next steps in the DRS Pilot Project workflow
• 14th A basic walk through the repository (Sarah)
• 21st: WordPress walk through (Eli)

Pivot

Hillary walked us through Pivot, a database of funding opportunities that Northeastern subscribes to at the moment. Here are some comments from that discussion:

• Hillary recommended that staff members "claim" their profiles in Pivot, mainly so that pages could be updated in the event that incorrect or misleading information had been scraped by Pivot.
• Creating an account and logging in was recommended so that users can save and track funding opportunities. An NEU e-mail address is required to make use of the Pivot subscription paid for by the library.
• The resource seems particularly useful for exploring the range of funding opportunities that are relevant to the DSG, staff members, and affiliated NU communities (grad students, etc.). While not all-encompassing, it is a comprehensive aggregation of funding information found in various corners of the web.
• While some faculty members are aware of Pivot (via information sessions, no longer active, that were once hosted by the library), it might make sense to link to Pivot somewhere on the DSG's web site as a resource for project managers and affiliates.

DSG Project Toolkit Discussion

We continued our discussion of the sequencing / workflow needs to implement the DRS Project Toolkit. Specifically, we focused on the File Preparation stage of the workflow. More generally, we discussed the need to create a basic admin checklist for steps in the workflow. Jim will explore options via Podio.

In terms of the discussion of File Preparation, here are some highlights:

• The perceived need for a staging area for content before it enters the DRS. The Q drive isn't presently able to handler larger file types (like video content). One floated option was to repurpose a server that we already have for DSG content. Sarah ultimately will be the one who needs to know where this stuff lives and how to access it, so she will explore options for a staging area.
• We also discussed File Preparation and how projects will get content to us. Options discussed included DropBox, One Drive, external hard drives, etc. Once we meet with projects to learn about where they host their data, the DSG will have a better says of what can be streamlined / what best practices can be suggested and put in place.
• We also discussed the value of documents like a "Metadata Preparation Guide" and a "Copyright Hot Sheet" for projects.