Lessons Learned; Administrative and Policy Issues and Solutions; Complete your Plan Mike Conlon, UF Valrie Davis, UF Leslie McIntosh, WUSM

Lessons Learned

Plan Early and Stick to the Plan! Some of the most painful moments have been when we veered from the plan.

Define achievable milestones I am now using Google Documents to define achievable milestones and indicate completion. Each milestone has sub-tasks that are assigned to a person.

Visible interim results Google Docs also has the ability to visualization in a Gantt chart the milestones on your timeline. Very hand – although there are lots of different products available for you to use.

Breaking through Roadblocks This is the hard stuff and I rely heavily on communication and decision making to break through the roadblocks. To give you an idea of some of the roadblocks our team have experience along the way: Hiring a data steward Not enough time in the day Acquiring data from a source that is reticent of parting with their data

Team Dynamics Utilize expertise in the right roles Encourage communication and create ways for easier communication (listservs, meeting minutes, explain jargon, etc.) Address goals and tasks weekly Identify problem-solving processes Notice good work VIVO can be both rewarding and a very difficult project – and team dynamics can affect the work. Utilize expertise in the right roles: Often times team members are so excited to be working on VIVO that they may volunteer to coordinate work that would be more suited to a different member of the team, or to take on the coordination of a project that has several different moving parts. Communication: The most important thing for your new team is to encourage communication.  Create listservs, take meeting minutes, and encourage your team to utilize both.  Team members should be positive in their communication and provide as much information as possible.  Team members often work varying amounts of time on VIVO, leading to information disparaties.  Members who spend a greater portion of time on implementation should make a conscious effort to provide as much information as possible, without overwhelming, when they communicate.  Members who spend less time on VIVO should read meeting minutes and ask questions when they don’t understand.  All team members should limit the jargon they use, an important thing to remember for a team composed of systems administrators, librarians, data curators, and administrators. UF has weekly discussions about our goals and tasks. The plan can change, but we address each new task as identified and understand how it fits with our overall priorities. How do you move through an issue that just won’t go away. Identify how problems will be solved: There is no one way to implement VIVO and your institution’s approach may depend on your context and the experience of your team.  Identify who on your team makes the final decision, when disagreement occurs. This can be painful, not being a democracy Notice good work: This seems like a no-brainer, but is fundamental and, sometimes, difficult to do when moving quickly through tasks.  

Careful changing the ontology There are a number of places you can change the ontology adding new classes (such as internal/external) renaming. Affect integration w/ national network, data mappings, and how departments or others can repurpose the data. upgrade from .9 to 1.0 “roles” “missing information” Hid the fields forgot the problem existed Changes have repercussions!

Last lessons to share Take time to get data in right the first time Identify key stakeholders early Be realistic and don’t go it alone Organizations example: hand entered, but didn’t get all organizations inputted. Also, DSR data sponsorID wasn’t correct Data steward:recognize the sponsorID issue scripting of data issues resulted in the merge. Right people in the right roles! Kristi has talked about the importance of key stakeholders – be sure and identify them, ensure their profile data is correct, and populate the system with as much of your data as you can locate. Most meetings I attend with Deans, we look at their profiles and laugh about their early research. Be realistic and don’t go it alone – ask for help. We didn’t utilize our PI early on because we thought he was too busy. Many people may be too busy or unsure of how to assist, but the more people you can have assist you the easier it is to get buy-in locally. Ask your local people about data sources, find out if you have experts on campus who are doing related research, and be careful about what you promise. Stick to the plan!

Engagement Engage senior leadership Engage data “owners”/stewards VIVO is an enterprise service/system/project Engage data “owners”/stewards It’s their data Engage faculty Be clear about why and when

Policy Questions Who will edit data in VIVO? What data will be public? How will software updates be handled? Who decides? How will emergency privacy issues be handled? How will “unexpected” policy questions be addressed? Who makes policy decisions for VIVO?

Complete your plan

What you need to determine: Scope/Tasks Team/Resources Time/Schedule Determine what tasks need to be completed, who it will take to do it, and a timeframe.

Primary Tasks Planning Installation and Understanding Making Data Available Gaining access to data Data ingest Permission Transition to Operations Communicate throughout! VIVO needs to be installed, which means determining what system requirements are needed, back-up procedures, etc. Making data available means gaining access to the data sources, working with the data to get them into VIVO, and having permission to use and expose the data Communicating with the stakeholders goes both ways. Find out what they want in order to use VIVO

What data will be in VIVO? Essential Publications Photos Educational Background Important Grants Courses Nice Presentations Excluded Phone numbers Gender Building location This is just an example,

Team Composition Project Manager System Administrator Data Scientist Outreach Liaison Translations: Computer guru Data nerd People person

Time Estimate the time you think it will take for each task Double it Phases/Releases …and manage expectations. Translations: Computer guru Data nerd People person

Completing Your Plan Your One Pager Your scope Your Time line, task list, Gantt chart Your resource plan Your environmental assessment Your governance plan Your communication/outreach plan