Institutional participation in the pilot programme, which is taking place between January and July 2016, will be a critical to the Jisc Monitor project as it is developed from ideas, requirements and prototype software to a Jisc service.
Jisc Monitor combines two applications, which may be used separately or as an integrated service. Monitor Local will enable institutions to manage processes around Green and Gold Open Access publishing, including author liaison, compliance (HEFCE REF, UK Funders, Horizon 2020) and APC costs where applicable. Monitor UK will openly aggregate article level OA publication information from participating institutions, providing analyses and data for institutions, funders and Jisc Collections to benchmark costs and to assess trends.
Over twenty institutions are participating in the Monitor pilot, spanning a full range of mission groups. Their involvement is tightly integrated with the software development process being led by Sero Consulting with Cottage Labs and Knowledge Integration.
The guiding principle steering the development process is that timing is of the essence, geared to achieving a ‘Minimum Viable Product’ (MVP) ready to be implemented as a Jisc service for the 2016-17 Academic Year. The MVP approach has become the de facto industry response to controlling start-up developments in a rapidly moving web ecosystem, and seems fitting for addressing similarly time critical issues in the HE sector.
The pilot programme has started with a series of webinars and workshops for taking feedback on key areas ranging from design of data entry forms to opportunities for complementary data enhancements drawing on Jisc and external services (e.g., CrossRef, KBplus). In addition, the HHuLOA Open Access Pathfinder project involving Huddersfield, Hull and Lincoln is actively reviewing the requirements and specification documents produced by the development team.
From the next workshop on April 28th in Manchester, the focus will switch to reviewing real software and to informing iterative enhancements made possible by an ‘Agile’ development approach, whilst constrained by mutual recognition of the MVP priority described above.
For further information about Jisc Monitor and institutional involvement in the pilot, please contact frank.manista@jisc.ac.uk.