Verde Task Group Meeting
1 Nov 2006
McKeldin Library, College Park

Present: Betty Day, Robin Klein, Nathan Robertson, Joyce Tenney, Laura Wrubel

Timeline

The ResearchPort hardware failures in October required the emergency use of Verde server parts, and Verde is currently unavailable until replacement hardware arrives. As a result, we lost our slot within ExLibris' upgrade timetable (in addition to losing time for Verde data entry). The entire timeline is therefore pushed back at least two weeks and perhaps more.

Adding Libraries

The task group agrees that the best course for determining the order for libraries to implement Verde would be to seek volunteers. Volunteers should be willing and able to devote the staff time needed for the implementation, and volunteers will also understand that as "earlier adopters" they will need to be patient with our untested training techniques. Betty will propose this method to the Executive Council for their agreement, and then send out a message to the libraries to solicit volunteers.

Best Practices

Betty and Nathan met with Anne Bowden, UMCP legal counsel, on October 26th to discuss the license interpretation best practices document. Anne suggested some clarification of definitions, but approved our recommendations for interpretation practice. Nathan will revise the document to reflect the suggestions; thereafter, it will be ready for use and distribution.

Roles, Profiles, and Permissions

The bulk of the meeting time was spent exploring and discussing the Verde roles and profiles. The inability to use Verde (because of the aforementioned hardware failures) impeded our ability to clarify some questions.

It appears that "profiles" control the security to view, edit, and perform functional tasks. Roles, on the other hand, are identifications for user types; likely for identifying the recipients of notifications from workflow events. In most cases, for most libraries, it will probably make sense for profiles and roles to be congruent; for example, there should be an "acquisitions" role and an "acquisitions" profile, and everyone with the acq role should be assigned the acq profile. At some more complex institutions there may be some value in creating separate, more granular profiles to control access; so among those with the acq role you may find people with the acq-admin profile, the acq-staff profile, etc. Each library will need to evaluate its own staffing and workflow to determine the optimal configuration and assignment of roles and profiles.

We determined that for each of the MDL participants-for each institute within the consortial instance-we will require the following: One or more persons assigned the role of approving renewals, and one or more persons assigned the role of receiving downtime alert messages.

Implementations

"Pre-work" for each library prior to implementation will include:

1. Review their SFX instance and ensure that it is up-to-date.
2. Interpret each of their local licenses (if any) onto a standardized form.
3. Fully evaluate local e-resource lifecycle workflows, describe needed roles, profiles, and workflow assignments.

For items 2 and 3, the libraries will need the best practices document, appropriate forms, and documentation.

Assuming exec agreement with the scheme for soliciting volunteers for Verde implementation, the task group would like to hold an implementation workshop for those early adopting libraries on the afternoon of November 27th. We will discuss the required pre-work and the steps necessary for implementation, and provide some training in license interpretation and workflow and role analysis.

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