Overview

While technical developments are still underway and on-time, much of the past month’s focus has been on outreach efforts. Not only has the outreach team achieved their objectives for the month, but they have also developed several initiatives that impact the project and its trajectory in positive ways.

Technical Team

In the last month, the technical team has completed all Phase One stages of their development schedule. With all login functionality pieces in place, the team is prepared to begin Phase Two—implementing all remaining functions of the tool, with an estimated completion at the end of September. Meanwhile, user interface (UI) design is underway. Site wireframes are undergoing a second round of review, with a more aesthetic focus. The technical team is collaborating with several others on such design decisions as branding and outsourcing. The team has engaged in continued talks with the Center for Open Science (COS) regarding implementing DMPTool into Open Science Framework. A similar opportunity has arisen with the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative, who have expressed interest in implementing DMPTool in a similar way. Discussions with these organizations should continue within the next month or so. These developments have placed the technical team on-track toward the intended DMPTool2 release date.

Communications/Outreach Team

The outreach team has made significant strides during the past month. The outreach schedule is complete and will be finalized and implemented this week. The team publicized functional requirements and have not only received public enhancements requests but also developed a policy to address such requests with the assistance of the technical team. They have also up a customer relationship management system, in the interest of reaching our Shibboleth and ARL institution authentication goals. The team has coordinated responses to Advisory Board requests and is currently assessing logistics for August meetings. The webinar series continues to meet success, with an average turnout of approximately 70 participants. The consensus is that there is a core of repeat librarian participants. In response, the team is brainstorming alternative outlets to reach other stakeholders. Other current brainstorming projects include: developing a “tiers of participation” matrix to clarify institutional status confusion, and seeking use cases for the technical team. Finally, the outreach team has scheduled an end-of-project meeting for Spring, 2014.

Metrics

Upon assessing progress toward each goal outlined in Sloan Foundation communications, the project management team and the outreach team set strategic achievement plans in motion. The outreach team continues to implement such plans as the project management team monitors progress. An extensive project tracking system has been set up and distributed to all team members with weekly status updates. Several goals are on-track, including those pertaining to: conference attendance, webinars, open API testing, doubling the user base, and doubling the number of plans. The project management team continues to seek feedback from Advisory Boards as well as through community outreach regarding impact metrics.

Overall Project

As previously expected, the team has made significant progress in the past month. There has been a lot of activity in all areas of the group. With the technical team caught up and the now-expanded outreach team doubling their efforts, a smaller number of project items may carry into next year than previously determined. The project is, therefore, on track to completion by January, 2014.