http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/how-do-you-maintain-digital-projects-in-the-long-term Digital Humanities Questions & Answers » Topic: How do you maintain digital projects in the long term? en-US Tue, 02 Aug 2016 11:11:40 +0000 http://bbpress.org/?v=1.0.2 q http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/search.php http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/how-do-you-maintain-digital-projects-in-the-long-term#post-2185 Wed, 11 Jun 2014 01:43:49 +0000 Beth Russell 2185@http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/ <p><em>Replying to @<a href='/profile/paregorios'>paregorios</a>'s <a href="http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/how-do-you-maintain-digital-projects-in-the-long-term#post-2183">post</a>:</em></p> <p>I know, we do have amazing colleagues in DLTS whose expertise we'll be calling on! </p> http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/how-do-you-maintain-digital-projects-in-the-long-term#post-2184 Wed, 11 Jun 2014 01:43:01 +0000 Beth Russell 2184@http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/ <p><em>Replying to @Patrick Murray-John's <a href="http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/how-do-you-maintain-digital-projects-in-the-long-term#post-2182">post</a>:</em></p> <p>This is very helpful. Thank you! We've been toying around with the idea of hiring a programmer dedicated to the CDS so I what I would need to figure out is how to balance that person's time with project specific time. I guess what I was originally envisioning was hiring a programmer through the project funds, dedicated solely to that project, and then essentially their job would be done once the project was complete, but maybe I need to revisit that.</p> <p>Thanks again for the feedback. Much appreciated! </p> http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/how-do-you-maintain-digital-projects-in-the-long-term#post-2183 Tue, 10 Jun 2014 10:42:46 +0000 paregorios 2183@http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/ <p>Apropos digital preservation at NYU, the Digital Library Technology Services (DLTS) team at Bobst Library operates active and mature institutional repository services. And they're great people: <a href="http://dlib.nyu.edu/dlts/" rel="nofollow">http://dlib.nyu.edu/dlts/</a> </p> http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/how-do-you-maintain-digital-projects-in-the-long-term#post-2182 Tue, 10 Jun 2014 09:29:17 +0000 Patrick Murray-John 2182@http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/ <p><em>Replying to @Beth Russell's <a href="http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/how-do-you-maintain-digital-projects-in-the-long-term#post-2181">post</a>:</em></p> <p>So, do I follow right that you'd be hiring a full time developer for the term of the project, and are wondering what to do when the project is done and so that developer is no longer there?</p> <p>If that's the model, then I'd push the administration to add a permanent line to your budget for a developer, not one that's tied to just this project. Since the center is new, presumably you'll be getting many requests for this kind of work, probably more than enough to keep one (or two) people busy. And you will want to make sure that you have people around to do the b, ig maintenance tasks. (Relatedly do you have money for a student aide or two? They can be trained to do some of the smaller maintenance tasks).</p> <p>And, speaking of anticipated additional projects, remember that this question will be additive -- this'll have to be addressed for each new project. That's another reason for a general line in the budget for a developer who will work on many different projects.</p> <p>Last observation.... 5 years is pretty long technologically-speaking. If this were to go into something like WordPress or Drupal or Omeka as a platform, the site itself should probably be built in well under half that time (a Rails or Django site might be even quicker), and you'd be looking at a small amount of time responded to new releases of the platform, which is possible student aide work. There will also certainly be mid-size redesigns as the platform, and content evolves. In a 5 year timeframe, it's also likely enough that the original developer won't be around for the entire project, so that's something to consider in the budgeting and how the lines are organized.</p> <p>Hope this helps! </p> http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/how-do-you-maintain-digital-projects-in-the-long-term#post-2181 Tue, 10 Jun 2014 08:34:46 +0000 Beth Russell 2181@http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/ <p>Thanks to both of you for your replies, and so quickly. I guess what I was envisioning was that the project build will have a specific time-frame, say 5 years. After it's built, and only requires minimal upkeep, it wouldn't make sense to me to have a full time person, regardless of who pays for it, devoted to that. So how to work that out? What else would the person work on once the major build was done? </p> <p>One model I thought of was if I had a programmer in my CDS, then I could have 5% of that person's time devoted to that, but it's just a thought. </p> <p>The professor would be responsible for pointing out the content that needs to be updated, and providing the new content, since she's the subject matter expert. </p> <p>You've both given me a lot more to think about! </p> http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/how-do-you-maintain-digital-projects-in-the-long-term#post-2180 Mon, 09 Jun 2014 16:17:41 +0000 Patrick Murray-John 2180@http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/ <p>Seems like we might have responded to two different questions, diverging on the word "maintain" in the original question. There's "sustainability" that I focused on -- who keeps it up and running, keeps pushing content and tech. development forward, etc., and then there's "preservation" -- how does the institution maintain a copy for future reference / investment, which seems to be where Carl arrived at the end.</p> <p>Both are important to consider, and it seems like making the clear distinction, and figuring out what's expected for everyone in either realm, is important. On the preservation side, if the institution already has an IR and policies for it, that should be taken care of. If not, well, the institution has some work to do there, and that's at a higher level than CDS. </p> http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/how-do-you-maintain-digital-projects-in-the-long-term#post-2179 Mon, 09 Jun 2014 15:50:54 +0000 Carl Stahmer 2179@http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/ <p>There are very good reasons why an institution would want to maintain the work of one of its affiliated scholars after said person has left the institution. The least compelling reason from most scholars' points of view is the increasing regularity with which institutions are reserving the rights to research so that they can monetize it should it ever appear to become valuable. A more important reason is that institutions are increasingly realizing that collecting and preserving the intellectual output of their faculty is important to future of scholarly research. And finally, most major granting institutions (both private and public) will demand that a solid, long-term maintenance plan be in place prior to funding. Given all of the above, the question, “How do you maintain digital projects in the long term?” is a question with which anyone hoping to get a funded digital initiative off the ground will necessarily have to grapple.</p> <p>In trying to answer this question you should start to think about the difference between the data created by the project and the project's user interface. Keeping a site live and publicly accessible to everyone over the internet (which means keeping the UI maintained, updated, and serviceable over time) is one kind of preservation; but storing the data itself in an easily readable format and preserving it just as you would any other library collected object, is also a form a preservation—one that I would argue is, if not more valuable at least more realistic. This distinction is, of course, difficult to draw for a handful of resources where, as they say, the medium (in this case, the UI) is the message. But these represent an overwhelming minority of the scholarly works on the web.*</p> <p>Expecting an institution to keep a digital project alive and universally reachable for eternity is, as Patrick Murray-John suggest above, an unreasonable proposition—the historical equivalent to demanding that every library keep every copy of every book ever printed. It's impractical and also stifles experimentation and creativity as it drives everyone to deliver their content in one of a small number of community supported platforms which may or may not be optimal for the content being created. (It often is, but not always.)</p> <p>Shift the preservation focus away from the front end to the back end and convince your library to agree to archive a collection of well-structured, XML, flat-file representations of the data created by the resource (and by archive I mean not only store, but also enter it into their catalogue and OCLC so that it can be found). By doing this, you insure that the data itself is accessible to any motivated scholar to make use of as appropriate in the event that the sites primary user interface has outlived its useful life.</p> <p>-----<br /> * for a good overview of the full complexity of the curation process of born-digital objects, see, for example, Matt Kirschenbaum's white paper, "Approaches to Managing and Collecting Born-Digital Literary Materials for Scholarly Use" at <a href="https://securegrants.neh.gov/PublicQuery/main.aspx?f=1&amp;gn=HD-50346-08" rel="nofollow">https://securegrants.neh.gov/PublicQuery/main.aspx?f=1&amp;gn=HD-50346-08</a> </p> http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/how-do-you-maintain-digital-projects-in-the-long-term#post-2178 Mon, 09 Jun 2014 12:12:41 +0000 Patrick Murray-John 2178@http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/ <p>I'll kick in the radical answer: no one. </p> <p>If/when she moves on, I'd imagine it is up to her to continue it whereever she goes. In that case, you're responsibility would just be to make sure that it is designed so that it can move with her (e.g., get all the data out, make sure the platform follows standards, make sure that the system can be understood by someone outside your group in CDS, etc)</p> <p>Digging deeper, I see two different parts of your question: content and technology. Surely the question of updating content cannot fall to you -- it's a pretty subject specific bit of knowledge, which is why I aim toward saying long-term maintenance is up to her. </p> <p>On the technology side (I'm imagining things like updating Drupal if it's a Drupal site) that'd fall to you I suppose. But if she leaves and no one is using it, why expend the effort?</p> <p>So, I'd say that if the institution and faculty member want to build it, they should also plan to fund tech maintenance for as long as she is there, and that if she moves on, you shouldn't be on the hook for it unless another faculty member steps in to that role. Basically, if the institution wants long-term sustainability, they need to commit funds to that as well, and understand that if there is no longer a content expert for the site, then the site should be retired. </p> http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/topic/how-do-you-maintain-digital-projects-in-the-long-term#post-2177 Mon, 09 Jun 2014 04:41:05 +0000 Beth Russell 2177@http://digitalhumanities.org/answers/ <p>We have a new Center for Digital Scholarship, on a new campus, and I am new in my position heading up the space. A faculty member has approached me with an idea to build an Arabic language learning website. She'll seek funding from the institution to get it built and up and running, and the CDS will host the project, providing guidance, space, etc.</p> <p>What I keep running into as a sticking point is how this site will be maintained in the long run. After the professor moves on, and the site is fully built, who should assume responsibility for updating content, migrating it forward, etc.?</p> <p>I'd love to hear about any models of how this successfully works for you as I'm sure this is a common issue in our field. I've not found much in my preliminary research.</p> <p>Many thanks.<br /> Beth </p>