In the light of the 2015 business plan, the scope of Europeana's grant application (and involvement in future development) of the GLAMwikiToolset needs to be scaled back to things that have a more direct/obvious relationship to Europeana's mission. I would like your suggestions for what those elements should be.
Full version:
As the practitioners of the GLAMwikiToolset, the people who know the system, its history/purpose, its abilities and its flaws the best, I thought it important to relay to you directly a message that I delivered to the Wikimedia-l mailing list over the weekend.
The background story...
On that mailing list (for those who are not subscribed to it) there has been a long thread instigated by Erik Moeller on the topic of how the WMF would like to encourage Chapters to take up responsibility for GLAM-related software/tooling. Obviously the GWT and Europeana's involvement came up in this context and I've been actively engaged in the discussion.
On Friday was the Europeana AGM in Madrid where the annual plan was publicly discussed. It just so happened that at the exact time the keynote presentation about the 2015 Business Plan was happening, the Wikimedia-l thread renewed, with specific discussion of Europeana's planned commitment to the GWT next year. Incredibly precise timing!
The change of direction...
Of course, what no one knew was that within the context of this Europeana planning, I have been given specific instructions from senior management that a new round of intensive development on a content-agnostic, integrated mass-upload system for Wikimedia Commons is not within the scope of the mission of Europeana. Europeana is, after-all, an organisation focused on European digital cultural heritage but the GWT is a tool that can be used by anyone, from anywhere, for any kind of content that is acceptable to Wikimedia Commons. Further development of the infrastructure of the GWT work would increasingly be focused on areas that are further and further from the mission of Europeana. Europeana DOES wish to continue to develop the GWT in ways that directly support the mission of the organisation, but it has decided NOT to attempt to build the current tool into an all-singing-all-dancing fully integrated system for Commons. It's not about the cost specifically (though potential for 'scope creep' and therefore for budget overrun would have been very probable), but about being focused on the mission of the organisation.
From a personal perspective, as the guy who was pushing for the funding/creation of the magical, easy, beautiful mass-upload system since... I forget how long ago now... I would love to see investment (by anyone), but in my professional perspective I understand the need for Europeana to clearly define the scope of its activities.
Timing difficulties...
I would have liked to have this discussion more slowly and deliberatively but in the context of the AGM and the Wikimedia-l conversation happening, my boss and I agreed that it was important to be clear on the public record as quickly as possible so as not to have any false expectations (or, as few as possible!). I would have preferred to have shared this here first obviously but things don't always work out neatly like that. Apologies.
Two other aspects of things that, as a result of this change, didn't work out neatly timing-wise is that we are in the middle of both:
a) the EuropeanaTask Force to write a recommended strategy for Europeana's relationship to Wikimedia in accordance with the 2015-2020 strategic plan.
b) writing the grant application to the WikimediaFoundation for funding future development of the GWT itself.
The first point (the Task Force) is a strategic discussion and so, technically, is a higher-level of planning than the specific software development plans for the GWT. However, in reality, what Europeana invests in the GWT does obviously have implications for the longer-term strategy. Ideally report from the Task Force would be submitted first and the decision on the scope investment in the GWT would come as a result of it, but the timing of the annual planning precluded that.
The second point (the grant application) means a bit of re-writing and re-scoping...
The request...
Therefore, I would like your advise and suggestions as to what you, the practitioners of the GWT, believe to be the elements which should be included in the newly-rewritten WMF grant application, given this specific clarification from Europeana. Given that:
- we know that there are many things which we could do to improve the GWT
- we know that Europeana will only develop things that have specific relevance to European digital cultural heritage
- we know that the WMF will not approve an application for funding technical development if its value is limited to only a small group
We need to identify the aspects of the GWT that will have the most impact if improved but are also:
specific to be listed in the grant application,
achievable within the time/money/people resources available
, relevant to the needs of Europeana and the WMF (think
SMART criteria).
I've got a few points obviously, but I'd very much appreciate if you could add to this list:
- Usability improvements for the current workflow to ensure that the process as it currently stands is clearly explained within the system (including some user testing)
- Documentation completion/improvements (including screencasts and linking the steps of the process to the relevant parts of the documentation)
- Building the API that will easily push content already in Europeana (i.e. Is using the EDM - Europeana data model) to easily export to a GWT compliant file.
- Supporting the development of the Structured Data project (somehow!)
Suggestions welcome!
-Liam