NDSA:Friday, Dec 10, 2010

NDSA Infrastructure Group Call, 12/10/2010

On the call:

• Karen Cariani
• Leslie Johnston
• Michelle Gallinger
• Taylor Surface
• Dean Farrell
• John Unsworth
• Elizabeth Perkes
• Andrew Woods
• Cory Snavely
• Andrea Goethels
• Martin Halbert
• Kris Carpenter

(apologies for anyone missed)

Discussion of Mission

Andrea: Is this a different mission from the first one? Karen: Yes, this group is a bit of a challenge: what sort of work should the group be doing? It’s a challenge to develop software as a volunteer group. All agree, and state that Action Teams can be organized to develop tools/code. Michelle: Mission can of course be changed, and it should change over time. All agree.

Practices

Unidentified person asks if communication tools listed in the Practices section are in place. Michelle: Yes, listserv is up, wiki will be available in a week. Andrea: Suggests that the IdeaScale be added to the Practices list. Taylor: Are we using IdeaScale to identify work priorities? Karen: Yes

Review of Work Objectives

Unidentified person: Is this the overarching direction for work? Derived from the Scope? Karen: The Statement of Purpose describes the goal(s). The Work Objectives list the activities that will help the group reach the goals. Unidentified person: It seems to be wek wording. Should be review and recommend. Kris: Can we say “recommend” when it is an area of divergent practices, where experimentation is often important? Michelle: Perhaps Recommendations are for a subsequent task? Next Steps? Unidentified person: That’s logical. We should identify emergent best practices that we think are the most promising. John: Change the wording to “recognize.”

Andrea: Struggling with the phrase “best practices.” Unidentified person: How about “emerging” practices? And then recognize best practices? Karen: How about “investigate” or “recognize” or “document”? Or should we discuss development of use cases? Or critiques? Unidentified person: Also, the phrase “open source” is too limiting. Leslie: But, open source was the phrase used in the original IdeaScale topic. How can we retain that concept? Andrea: The open soure bullet should be about sharing a key concept. Elizabeth: Change that bullet to open source development. Andrea: Licenses, too. Karen: New wording … “approved.” Leslie: One note -- It’s not just LOC reporting – this is for everyone. John: We don’t have to wait for everything to be “done” to write things up, we should have a rolling schedule. Karen: Changing wording.

Karen: We’re trying to find a time for these calls. Friday at 1 seemed OK, but it’s not for a number of people. We’ll poll for times.

There will be a call for participation. Sign up on the wiki. Many are saying they can work, but few usually sign up to lead.

Prioritize by how many people sign up for each. We need to build engagement. We’ll post about the priorities soon.