Meeting Minutes June 12, 2009
Plinkit Project Coordinators/Tech Group Meeting Minutes June 12, 2009
1st part of meeting – all - 45 minutes
Roll Call
Troy Brown (IL), Susan Fipps (INCOLSA), Christine Kreger (CO), Darci Hanning (OR), Tom Metzger (INCOLSA), Sonya Norris (MI), Bev Obert (IL), Michael Sauers (NEBASE), minutes by Justine Shaffner (Collaborative Coordinator)
Approve 5/8 Joint Project Coordinators/Tech Group Meeting Minutes
Susan Fipps’ name was spelled wrong. There were no other corrections or objections so the minutes are approved.
Elect new chair of Project Coordinators Group for 7/09-6/10
Obert said unless someone else would like to be chair, she is willing to do this for another year so she can see it through the User’s Group getting started. Norris asked what the User’s Group is. Obert explained it will be for the people actually using Plinkit in their libraries. They’ll need to participate in two conference calls per year and we need the names of two people from each state/organization who are willing to participate. The group will discuss what they like and dislike about Plinkit, what enhancements they’d like to see, what’s been difficult to do … It’s to see what they think could be improved about the project.
Elect new chair of Technical Group for 7/09-6/10
Obert said Gregory really can’t do this for another year so we need a volunteer to chair the Technical Group. Hanning said she was willing to do this if no one else can. Brown said he was willing to do if Obert was not chair of the Project Coordinator’s Committee, but since she is, he’s worried that it wouldn’t be fair to the group to have Illinois people chair both groups. Hanning said she didn’t think this would be a problem, so if Brown is interested in doing this, she doesn’t think anyone would object. She asked what others thought. No one had a problem with Illinois chairing both committees.
Hanning nominated Brown. Obert asked if there were any other nominations. There were none, so Brown is the new chair of the Technical Group starting this July. Obert said the Steering Committee is developing by-laws and one thing they are looking at is having both a vice-chair and a chair position. She didn’t think either of our committees wanted their chair’s positions to be a two year commitment, but the Technical Group and Project Coordinator’s Committee can use the new procedures being developed to elect their chairs next year.
Status of Plinkit 2.0 work
Hanning said we are approaching the end of the third milestone. This is the point where we all need to spend time looking at our websites to make sure all of the issues are fixed. When Enfold releases this for user acceptance testing (UAT) we’ll get a checklist of what we should do. She sent out the list of milestones three through five, so everyone should spend some time looking at that document. Milestone four will include doing a dry run of the migration process on the Enfold server. Milestone five is the final UAT and sign off phase. Enfold is trying to schedule this but it’s hard to do without knowing what final requests we have.
Milestone three should be done by next Wednesday 6/17. From the time this is released we have ten business days to do the testing, so definitely look at the migration document. Brown said if they release it next Wednesday, this will be a problem for him. He’s out for the rest of June and he’ll be in the woods without internet access. Next week is kind of alright if he can get it out to his regional people so they can check it while he’s gone. Hanning and Brown will discuss this offline so she can see where she can fill in the gaps caused by his absence. Colorado should be alright. Hanning will touch base with Texas since they aren’t here.
Norris said she’s been having problems with emails to Hanning bouncing. Hanning said please send the bounces to darci.hanning@gmail.com since it never has problems. Shaffner told Norris she could always forward stuff on to Hanning if Norris has problems with bounces in future.
Hanning encouraged the new members to track the migration process as before they bring up new sites, we’ll want them to be on Plinkit 2.0 and though Enfold is helping members with the migration now, later it will be Oregon, Texas, Colorado and Illinois doing the handholding for new members during this process.
a. User’s manual
Kreger said she emailed the list serv on 5/29 re where they can find the draft of the user’s manual but emphasized that it’s not done. She needs people to make sure everything they want is in it and to also let her know if they think it’s organized correctly. Obert thought she was on track but will send it to their trainer for review too. She encouraged everyone to look at this. Kreger would like to have this done soon so she has something to give to Plinkit users before they move to the new version.
SOW for Skins
a. Update
b. Which skins available for Plone 3.0 should we clean up and implement for our use?
Troy compiled the responses and three came out on top, though there was a big range of opinions in some cases. Estate Lite, Subskins Preset One and Lite Plone Skin are the top three. None of these were really hated by anyone. We’ll probably take these three and use them for the SOW and our chosen vendor should use these as a starting point for a new skin. Hanning said we can use these skins in their entirety. We may need to make some changes, but there’s no need to develop a skin from scratch. We need to make sure these three skins followed section 508 compliancy and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines as there’s no guarantee that their developers did follow them. Brown said people did look to make sure the colors and contrasts are alright.
Brown would like to know what requirements we have here. He’ll develop a Google doc on this but he isn’t the greatest writer so will need everyone’s help. He mentioned that Lite Plone Skin may have accessibility issues on the navigation bar.
Report from Steering meeting
Obert said the Steering Committee is working on developing their by-laws. The budget is basically approved. Annual fees were set at $8000 per group and INCOLSA, LYRASIS and NEBASE will come back to the group with a proposal re their joint membership – what fee they should pay, what their committee representation should be etc. The Steering Committee is moving forward with getting the Plinkit name trademarked. They also had a discussion about Plone Bootcamp (see next item). Carol Adams from Virginia will be Chair Elect so will take over as Steering Chair in July 2010.
Steering needs recommendation on Plone Boot Camp
Shaffner said the Steering Committee would like a recommendation from the group re timing/rotation of how often and when Technical Group members can go to Plone Bootcamp. We should consider that new members may need immediate training and that training for certain members who are more responsive when others have questions may benefit the Collaborative most. But, try not to put all our knowledge eggs in one basket (Hanning) and consider the cost effectiveness of hosting our own training. Also consider that at certain points, the entire Technical Group may need to take training as soon as possible (e.g. if there are new Plone versions we’ll be implementing). The Steering Committee understands that needs may change and that it’s important to be flexible.
Hanning said part of this discussion can be thinking strategically over the long term about how often we’ll need to train. Will we do every Plone upgrade? Obert said the issue is big enough that we don’t need to make a decision today. Think about it and then we can have a discussion with the full committee in the next few months. At the next Technical Group only meeting where most members are in attendance they should have a conversation about this. Obert said that people who are going to Plone boot camp will be in a better position to make a recommendation after they’ve been through it. That training is at the end of July. Shaffner will put this as an item for discuss at the July Technical Group meeting and on the August joint meeting agenda.
Update on potential new members
Shaffner said Jim Scheppke (OR) talked to Mary Wegner (IA State Librarian) at the BCR Board meeting in May and that since she has more than 300 libraries using PLOW, she’s nervous about their having to upgrade to a later version of Plone. We’ll contact them in a year to see if the situation has changed. Shaffner will be contacting the Southeastern MA Regional Library System again at the end of this month.
Other Business
Norris talked about the possibility of a mentoring program for new Project Coordinators. She hopes that by next year we’ll have a lot more institutional knowledge so this burden wouldn’t fall exclusively on Oregon, Texas, Colorado and Illinois. Hanning asked if we should start this now. Fipps, Norris and Kreger all felt this was a good idea and Sauers agreed. Hanning asked if Norris could outline what she’d like to see in a Project Coordinators mentoring program - what would the time commitment be etc. – and email this to the list serv.
Obert asked Shaffner to bold the new meeting time and to email a couple of reminders since next month we’ll start meeting a half hour earlier.
There was no other business so Obert adjourned this part of the meeting.
Hanning will chair the Technical Group meeting.
Next Meeting (PLEASE NOTE NEW TIME ½ HOUR EARLIER) – July 10, 2009 Friday – 11:30am Eastern Time, 10:30 am Central Time, 9:30 am Mountain Time and 8:30 am Pacific
2nd part of meeting – Technical Group Discussion – 45 minutes
