NDSA:Innovation Working Group

Statement of Purpose

By encouraging and sharing innovative methods of digital preservation practices and technologies, we plan to distribute, document, and share emerging concepts, while conducting and guiding research and development with engaged partners to find solutions where none exist.

Current Proposed Action Teams

NDSA:Defining goals and principles, presenting new approaches: Develop a clear statement on the goals and purposes of data stewardship. The group felt that this was a daunting task but came up with two potential ways to approach it. Trevor suggested asking for short position papers from members about how they, or their organizations, identify the goals and purposes of data stewardship with the intention of then setting those institution and organization specific statements against each other as the basis to develop a broader perspective. Alternatively, Micah and others suggested that an action group could develop a provocative statement on goals and purposes as a first step and then use that statement to move others to comment and discuss. George Oats and Micah Beck expressed interest in being involved with an action committee for this project.

NDSA:Digital Preservation X-Challenges: John expressed excitement about this idea. This project would require a system or procedure where group members collaborated to identify a range of digital preservation challenges and then select particular challenges for which prizes could then be awarded. The group briefly discussed looking to industry or other institutions as potential prize sponsors. The specifics of this project would need to be defined by the action group.

See NDSA:Future projects for areas for the group to explore at a latter date.

Current Members

A list of current members is posted here: NDSA:Innovation Working Group Members.

Meeting Schedule and Minutes

One meeting was held in 2010 to kick-off the Innovation Group and to develop the charter:

November 5, 2010 from 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM ET - NDSA:Meeting Minutes 12-7-10

Practices

• Listserv: for ongoing communication
• Web site: for public dissemination of group’s work
• Monthly conference call: for coordinating ongoing activities
• Wiki: our common work space

Participation

Participation in the Outreach Working Group is restricted to NDSA member organizations. Contact co-chairs Micah Berk or Trevor Owens to join the working group.

Participants in the working group will participate in working group phone calls, undertake tasks to help the working group accomplish goals, and be active in helping accomplish the goals of the working group.

Action Teams may be created around specific tasks. These Action Teams may be self organized by members of the working group and may include non-NDSA members as the work requires. Non-NDSA members will not be participants in the Working Group but may contribute to the activities of any Action Team. Action Teams will update the Working Group about their accomplishments and progress.