1. A Review and Redesign of Roper Center Infrastructure
Elise Dunham, Cindy Teixeira, Marc Maynard, Lois Timms-Ferrara
The Roper Center for Public Opinion Research
University of Connecticut
IASSIST Conference 2014, Toronto, Canada
Throughout this conference, there have been many presentations and discussions about how our community is handling the data proliferation movement occurring today. We are all having to evaluate our infrastructures and makes decision about how to more front. The Roper Center has been conducting a review and redesign of our infrastructure with these challenges in mind.

2. Project Goals Improve processing of digital objects
Expand our collection
Volume
Types of data/objects
Openness with our policies
Develop new services
When moving forward with this type of project, we needed to identify some basic goals.
First, we know we needed to improve the processing of digital objects including increasing efficiency, reducing duplication of efforts by the Roper Center staff and decreasing the manual processing of materials.
Second, we wanted to expand our collection, by both increasing the volume of materials and types of data acquired by the Roper Center. We want to be able to document new and experimental methodologies conducted in the public opinion field, as well as collection disclosure information. The AAPOR Transparency Initiative is recommending a more open exchange of metadata by public opinion data collectors…….
Third, we want to be more open with our policies to ensure the Roper Center’s long-standing reputation for data quality. We need to update internal and create external use policy documents. And be able to connect those policy documents directly to our processing actions.
Finally, we want to develop new and innovative services for our user community.

3. Project Overview Funded in 2011 by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Three Phases
Review
Design
Implementation
With these goals in mind , the Roper Center in 2011 submitted a proposal and was awarded funds from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to address our infrastructure needs. The project was to be conduct in three phases.
Review
The first phase is the Review Phase. During this phase, the Roper Center was to hire a consultant to facilitate an intensive workflow analysis to include: Documenting all aspects of the processes and procedures in each workflow and defining common terminology used at the Center. From this workflow analysis, we hoped to developing recommendations for the integrating our current workflows into a single stream model.
Design
Then, we would move on to the Design Phase. During this phase, we would redesign the information architecture using a common metadata structure. We would determine new and desired requirements for data processing, preservation and access, while keeping in mind current archival standards, the needs of the research community and the movement for an open exchange on information with other archives.
Implementation
Finally, we would prioritize and implement our new process and system changes. We planned on making these changes gradually to not disrupt services to our user community.

4. iPOLL
The Roper Center has two main processing groups. Each processing group is responsible for workflows based on a product or service that we provide to our users. These workflows have specific staff members assigned to them.
Our first processing group works on iPOLL. iPOLL is our question level retrieval database of over 600,000 questions and results. The database is populated, generally, using published materials like press releases, report and toplines that include full question wording. In an election year, approximately 20,000 questions are added to the database and 15,000 to 18,000 in a non-election year with 1.5 staff members and 6 undergraduate students.

5. RoperExpress
Our second main processing group is referred to as the Archive group. They are responsible for processing studies for RoperExpress. RoperExpress allows users to search for studies online, and download the related data and documentation files. We process approximately 1,500 studies per year with 1.5 staff members, 2 graduate students and 2 undergraduate students.

6. Review Phase Creation of a central repository Workflow analysis
Hand-offs
Skillsets
Standards and policies
Tracking and queuing
Product specific requirements
In the Summer of 2011
Creation of the Wiki which included:
Modified existing user manuals used for training
Create new documents
Review the mapping existing databases to DDI
In the Fall of 2011
In-depth Workflow analysis began which included:
Reviewed processing documents and instructions on the Wiki
Complete walk-through of workflows from acquisitions to the public release of materials
Hand-offs
Skillset required for each step
Standards and policies adhered to
Tracking and quality assurance mechanisms
Current queues
Product specific requirements for iPOLL and RoperExpress
Wishlist for a new processing system
Mapped our workflow to an information model (OAIS)

7. Processing Workflows ASSESSMENT Acquire Study Materials
Prepare Study for Release
Add Study Level Information
Add Question Level Information
Proof Question Level Content
Release to Public
Acquire Study Materials
Initial Processing
Quality Control 1
Intensive Processing
Quality Control 2
Archive Electronic Files
Release to Public

8. Review Phase Guide to common Roper Center terminology
Peer and environmental scan
Metadata standards
Reporting our findings
Creation of the Common Roper Center terminology document
Peer and Environmental Scan Ann conducted
Information models (OAIS model)
Assessment (Data Seal of Approval and Drambora)
Preservation (PREMIS)
Repository Certification (TRAC and ISO 1363)
Software (Coletica)
Metadata standards
Identified common metadata “buckets” or “containers”
Consider metadata standards like DDI
Reports
Full Report identifying our current deficiencies and recommendations for a new processing system
Executive Summary to communicate our general findings to our Board of Directors
Workbook which acts as a roadmap through the design and implementation phases

9. Project Recommendations
Develop new processing and metadata production infrastructure
Develop DDI-compliant Ingest & Processing Unit
Combine processing teams
Develop integrated queue and tracking system
Document policies and processing rules
Extend support for AAPOR Transparency Initiative
Develop formal Preservation Planning process
Develop a new processing and metadata infrastructure
Based on a Single Stream Workflow Processing Model 
Develop a single ingest unit
Combine processing teams
Build a DDI compliant, integrated common metadata structure
Develop metadata production interface
Develop integrated queue and tracking system
Document policies and processing rules
Extend support for AAPOR Transparency Initiative
Hire highly skilled specialized staff
Consider self and external assessment certifications
Develop integrated preservation actions and planning 

10. Implementation Phases
Core Ingest Unit
Merge of Processing Teams
Study Assessment Module
Acquisition Management Module
Workflow Management/Queue and Tracking System
Within her project recommendations, Ann identified a number of feasible “first steps” the Roper Center could take toward Infrastructure Redesign. Our team’s first task after the review was to break these steps down even further into lean, manageable phases. There are only 3 of us at the Roper Center dedicating time to this project, and between all 3 of us wearing multiple hats & juggling the day-to-day, as well as 1 of us transitioning into a new organization & position, it’s crucial for us to tackle this project incrementally. The implementation phases we’ve identified are as follows:
Develop Core Ingest Unit
Merge our processing teams
Develop Study Assessment Module
Develop Acquisition Management Module
Develop Queue and Tracking System (for processing at study, file, and variable levels)

11. Progress So Far 1. Developed Core Ingest Unit
Persistent Study ID
Study- and File-level metadata production infrastructure
2. Began merge of processing teams
3. Developed Study Assessment Module
Developed Core Ingest Unit
Persistent Study ID-unique ID assigned and maintained no matter what we acquire first from a study. This is crucial because we often acquire published material before we acquire the dataset it came from, and our access tools require us to make connections between these materials. In the current system we backtrack and identify these connections manually; the Ingest Unit increases our efficiency by assigning a centralized unique identifier for the study and allowing us to attach everything to do with a single study to that study’s record.
Also, the core Ingest Unit currently supports Study and file level metadata entry and management, which we’ll get to see in a moment
Began merge of processing teams/work flow
Started by integrating our physical space
Continued by incrementally cross-training our undergraduate student workers in tasks completed “on the other side”. Students hired for iPOLL work are able to jump into some of the work on the data processing side, and vice-versa.
Then, we designed and developed an assessment module for the systematic intake of new acquisitions. The key components of this module are that it makes it so staff working in acquisitions begin building study-level metadata records pre-Ingest, and the system itself encourages conscious adherence to our acquisitions policy. We’re actually going to take a look at the design and implementation of the assessment module.

12. Conceptual Design
There are 3 categories of activities within our new system: Assessment, Acquisitions, and Workflow Management. We see the 3 blue boxes at the top as Assessment tasks—we determine whether or not the study meets our acquisition requirements and whether or not we’ve already acquired something from it. On the right, we have Acquisitions tasks—checking for missing metadata components like sampling methodology information or permissions verification—anything that requires back-and-forth with data providers is something we want to be tracking in our Acquisitions Tracking system. The boxes on the bottom represent tasks that become relevant to Workflow Management—we can’t assign material a “task path” until our Workflow Management/Processing piece is in place, so it’s outside the scope of our Assessment Module phase.

13. Detailed Conceptual Design
Check for Study
NEW
PASS
IN SYSTEM
Assessment Checkboxes
What is the processing priority?
FAIL
FAIL
IPOLL
NOT IPOLL
Acquisitions Tracking
Holding Bin
Question-Level Processing Queue
Archive Processing Queue
INGEST

14. Demo of Roper Center Assessment module

22. back to show

23. Next Steps Upstream Downstream Preservation planning
Acquisitions Management Module
Downstream
Metadata-driven variable-level processing interface
Workflow management/task paths
Quality assurance controls
Preservation planning
In terms of next steps…we frame discussions of this project by referring to processes that are “upstream” and “downstream” from Ingest in the workflow. So for “upstream” work we have the Acquisitions Management piece, and “downstream” we will be developing a DDI-compliant infrastructure and interface for variable-level processing, a method for managing workflow and tasks throughout the entire system, and continuing to integrate quality assurance controls across the board. And, as a rider to this project, we’ll be focusing a lot of attention on preservation planning.

24. Workflow Analysis Tips
Bring in an outside expert
Be comfortable with your dirty laundry
Be open to change
Change incrementally
What we really hope the takeaway here is that internal reviews are feasible and worth your while, no matter the size of your staff. We all recognize that our workflows could be more efficient, but it really takes sitting down and hashing things out with an outside expert, being comfortable with your dirty laundry, being open to change, and being willing to change at the pace that works for your staff to be able to fully address workflow issues. If we can do it, so can you.
Bring in an expert (value of outsider perspective)
Be fully open to the process; be okay with your dirty laundry.
Be open to change.
Change incrementally—working in manageable steps; and start with a concept and take it all the way through.

25. Thank you!
Elise Dunham: Cindy Teixeira: Roper Center: Follow us on Like us on Facebook: Thanks to Ann Green for all of her work and continued guidance on this project.