Coming Soon: the JISC LMS Red Top

In an effort to keep the JISC LMS projects as connected as possible, Ben Showers will be producing a Tabbloid 'magazine' which pulls together project blogposts, tweets etc into one easy to read document once a week.

The first issue is planned for the end of this week and will draw on the one minute pitch blogposts that you've been producing.

In other words, if you haven't already written your one minute pitch then the next few days might be a good time for you to get yours done :)

As soon as the Tabbloid round-up is off the presses we'll be posting a copy here. The plan is for an edition to be automatically produced once a week ... welcome to the future ;-)

Conversations for a very short lift journey

At the close of our recent JISC LMS Programme Meeting in Glasgow the projects were all set the task of writing a "One Minute Pitch" blogpost. The challenge set by Ben Showers was for them to head back to their project teams and craft a short blog post which sums up:
a) why their project is important;
b) what the main outputs of the project will be; and
c) why others outside of their project team/institution should be interested.

I thought it might be useful to pull together a list of one minute pitches ... gold stars to all those who've done theirs already :)
- #COVPRIMO: http://covprimo.blogspot.com/2010/09/covprimo-one-minute-blog.html
- #YOCALCAT: http://yocalcat.wordpress.com/2010/09/14/yocalcat-oclc-worldcat-local-outputs-one-minute-blog/
- #CULWIDGETS: http://culwidgets.blogspot.com/2010/09/one-minute-pitch.html
- #JANGLEFB: http://jiscjanus.wordpress.com/2010/09/23/one-minute-pitch/
- #CREDAUL: http://credaul.wordpress.com/2010/09/26/elevator-pitch/
- #ENCLAVELMS: http://enclave.lib.ed.ac.uk/?p=109
- #BFCESEARCH: http://www.blackpool.ac.uk/blog/en/one-minute-blog/280910
- #SWWHEPSRCH: http://swwhepsrch.blogspot.com/2010/09/why-and-what-is-swwhepsrch-brief-pitch.html

In addition to these one minute pitches, some projects have done post-event blogposts:
- #FINDMYLIBRARYBOOK: http://findmylibrarybook.blogspot.com/2010/09/jisclms-programme-meeting-7-8-september.html
- #CULWIDGETS: http://culwidgets.blogspot.com/2010/09/jisc-lms-meeting-in-glasgow.html

And some people (well a certain person) even managed to do a mid-event blogpost:
Dave Pattern's blogpost (inspired by Lynn Connaway's talk): http://www.daveyp.com/blog/archives/1428

If your project has written a one minute pitch which isn't listed above then please let me know by leaving a comment - I'll be adding more as I spot them.

I'm mindful that it's possible not everyone will be aware of this '1 min pitch' task due to early departures and whatnot ... just shout if you want to join in but need clarification :)

{Helen Harrop}

Our world re-mapped

Here is the jiscLMS world view (map, PCB, network?) taking account of feedback in Glasgow.

Please let me know if there are errors, omissions, etc.

Please also check out your institution's entry in the HE Library Technology wiki (great work Ken!). You know the story ... if it's wrong edit it.

It would also be excellent for the jiscLMS ERM strand if you would enter your ERM system details in the other helibtech table.

David

A map for Glasgow

Here is my attempt to map together the projects and the products involved in jiscLMS.

I imagine there will be errors and omissions, which we can correct as part of the meetings - but at least it's there to be shot down ;)

I'll explain the key early in the event!

We'll blog an 'synthesised' version after the event so everyone can comment further.

David

Looking forward (to Glasgow)

Hello again

Reading all those posts prompted a bunch of questions that we ought (I think) be addressing at the Glasgow programme event (and online so everyone can join in), whether in the background of other discussions or as topics in their own right.

1.

Reliability and sustainability – What’s biting you? Vendor code, scripts you’ve written, OS stuff you’re trying to use, integration, automation, back up, unidentified gremlins, other things? We’re looking for ‘industrial strength’ services not just pilots so we may need to be realistic about the prospects

2. Sources of knowledge – What works for your implementation? This programme is seeking to adopt an open source / community model but where does the key knowledge lie? Perhaps you are the UK expert, or someone in your tech team, a vendor, another jiscLMS project, an online community or forum?

3. Search – Do we need to worry? Many of you are deploying discovery services based on the catalogue and / or a wider world. You are therefore offering two services (or more). In the ‘old days’ we would have lost sleep over issues such as consistency of results (e.g. LMS v. Blacklight), differences in search strategy (What does simple search actually do?) and performance (initial results, record display). Are the differences significant? Do we care – and more important – do our users care?

4. Search – What about Google? For all our good work, improvement on the core LMS OPAC and user focus, are we any nearer making our search services more attractive than Google?

5. Extra Opportunities – To grasp or not to grasp? Most of you will have identified opportunities arising from the execution of your original plan (e.g implementation of a search service or a widget). Those opportunities may be changes to processes (we could / should now do ‘x’ differently in the library) or additional applications (we could integrate with reference management, Facebook, etc). Have got a list / what are you doing with it?

6. LMS ‘Families’ – on speaking terms? The LMS might not be the centre of our thinking anymore, but it is still an elephant in the room. Should we be speaking to the other projects using the same LMS? There may be tips to share or issues to escalate. I've started to draw a diagram to map the linages between projects in terms of LMS, search products, etc - hopefully I can improve on the photo above by Tuesday :)

Finally, here’s something to consider on the train or plane or pedaling the Brompton to Glasgow … and if you can’t join us why not blog this during the week …

Make a list of three things only (and ideally agree it with your team)

1. The best thing that has happened in your project
2. · The worst thing
3. · The most significant surprise out of ‘left field’ – good or bad

Have a good weekend - David

Looking back (at over 300 posts)

Hello everyone

I’m David Kay and I’m working with Helen Harrop, supporting JISC in the synthesis of the jiscLMS family of projects – and therefore, echoing Helen’s first post (and JFK), I guess I should say ‘Ich bin ein Synthesiser’.

As well as working with David Flanders and Ben Showers to plan the Glasgow event, I’ve just been looking back at over 300 posts for a dozen projects involving 15 institutions in the user interface and web areas (Strands 1 & 2) … so what are my impressions? I’ll go for a neat number, so here are five …

1) There is significant convergence (therefore potential synergies) across the UX and web strands, catalysed by the user requirements that are on everyone’s minds – predominantly making both the local collection and the wider mass of e-resources more coherently visible to users, especially undergraduates

2) There is encouraging enthusiasm amongst your teams and your trial users for the tools and applications that are central to this effort – we clearly have some good platforms on which to develop services and to share lessons learned

3) Both developing and exploiting open source is proving a worthwhile journey – though not everything is perfect out there in terms of documentation, support and the extra nuts and bolts needed for integration (no one expected that ;)

4) There are some very powerful vendor components that we’d be foolish to ignore – such as Aquabrowser and Worldcat – though I wouldn’t call them ‘solutions’ because they are part of a rich picture for the libraries deploying them

5) We should be sharing findings and issues and Glasgow next week not only within the programme strands (UX, Web, ERM, OS) but also – and perhaps most important – on crosscutting themes such as the underlying LMS (e.g. Millennium, Talis, Voyager), community-based support strategies (e.g. for Vufind) and user-focused ‘testing’ approaches

But ‘looking forward to Glasgow’ is my next post so enough for now …

David