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DAS Subcommittee Meeting
February 23-24, 2016
17 North State Street, Chicago, IL
Room 1670 on the 16thth floor
Minutes
Present: Mahnaz Ghaznavi (Chair), Liz Bishoff, Lori Lindberg, Cynthia Ghering, Kate Legg, Glen McAninch, Thomas Rosko, and Sybil Schaefer committee members; Veronica Martzahl (Comprehensive Examination Consultant), Peter Carlson (Director of Finance), and Matt Black (Web and Information Administrator) for part of the meeting; and Solveig De Sutter (Director of Education), Brianne Downing and Mia Capodilupo (Education Coordinators). Absent: Cynthia Ghering.
Ghaznavi welcomed everyone, explained that Carlson and Black were going to provide an update on “the state of SAA” and the new SAA web site midmorning, and that we were going to have a skype call with Veronica Martzahl. Subsequently, the agenda sequence will be changed as needed.
Staff Report - De Sutter highlighted the A&D Certificate Program rollout and the work being done on the new website that is expected to launch mid-April. The staff report prompted questions about the number of people who started the DAS program and didn’t finish. How do we know who is intending to finish the program. At present there is no way to say for sure. We’ve been assuming people who take more than two examinations go on to pursue the certificate. Bishoff suggested adding a question on the evaluation survey about pursuing the DAS certificate.
Legg shared that SRMA is very interested in the DAS program and may be a good group to survey. Why do people start and not finish? At SRMA, 15 out of 72 registrants ended up taking the exam.
De Sutter feels that we need to maintain DAS by putting more energy into development of new courses, now that the comprehensive examination is in pretty good shape and older courses have been updated or retired. We do need to make sure the new course material makes it into the Comp exam. Rosko suggested considering abolishing the comprehensive examination, and it was pointed out the group would then have to shift focus totally to the quality of individual exams and make them harder. As is, the Comp Exam lends the program a certain cache. Competition is increasing – there are more and more certificate programs out there (Maryland, GSU, etc.) though very expensive (Maryland is $7,000 for 9 credit hours).
Fundamentals of Web Archiving
Brand new format – series of three videos with PowerPoint presentations, followed by a live chat discussion session. Sessions are offered every two months. The first discussion session was disappointing – participants didn’t come prepared with questions and session wasn’t facilitated very well. We plan to encourage people to come prepared with questions they may have as they as they view the videos, and polls could also be brought up as a discussion point. Group agreed that facilitator needs to come prepared with a discussion guide in preparation for participants who don’t have any questions.
Strategic plan
Bishoff introduced a revised strategic plan she modified by adding dates to goals and objectives to define them further. Ghaznavi would like to finish the strategic plan soon since strategic plans are usually published and followed by annual reviews and edits. Question: What is the difference between this strategic plan and the Ghaznavi/Lindberg assessment/recommendation report?
Since we review courses every two years, we should amend the plan accordingly and record the progress toward goals. Plan should be, at most, three years out. This strategic plan covers 2016-2018. Liz will generate the next draft of the strategic plan based on this discussion.
“State of SAA” - Carlson informed the group that SAA experienced a 33% turnover this past year (4 out of 12 people left and were replaced). New staff is bringing fresh eyes and ideas to SAA. We were for the first time in a convention center for the Annual meeting resulting in many business challenges. Membership remains stable with approximately 6,100 members.
SAA held its first all-member electronic referendum on a dues increase that passed with a large majority after much discussion. Software upgrade is taking place in next two months, and we have many shadow systems that need to be consolidated. The redesigned website is also on track, and there is ongoing investigation of an LMS/Education program.
IT - Black shared that the SAA server has been upgraded – providing SAA staff with easier remote access. A lot of tech infrastructure needs to be upgraded before the individual software can be approved.
Our new website can display a larger variety of information on the homepage. The current SAA website is very dense with information and DAS is one of the bigger website draws. Many nested pages, each with a lot of content, so redesign has been a challenge. For the Education section, catalog was migrated using Drupal and is now searchable by Certificate program, Tier, etc. Descriptions are updated and standardized.
AMS status – Right now we are using MemberMax to manage everything at SAA including Education, and we can’t transition to a new AMS in time to keep up with Education needs. Overall, the association management systems are moving away from “one system that is used for every function” toward a more modular or plugin approach where all parts are able to communicate with each other.
Cost considerations are always a factor, and the problem with LMS’ is that they fall into either online course management or registrar management. Committee wondered if they will be able to contribute to both development and reporting requirements. Trying to knock off the low hanging fruit of processes that take up a lot of time.
DAS Comprehensive Exam - Martzahl was visible via Skype but the audio was very faulty but the group managed to get through the questions identified for February review.
Grant opportunities were discussed. Grants don’t support operations in general but do support many diversity grants; however, that would be a top-level SAA endeavor for council through the Mosaic program. We should have input but not be responsible – that is out of scope for this committee. There is also the issue of diversifying the DAS program individually as well. Would it be better to diversify through faculty?
Suggestions - Burgess Jules – Twitter archive project (could be asked to teach?); draft email to recruit minority faculty; recruit developers for more diverse courses (Archiving in other languages, social media, etc.)
Ghaznavi cautioned that we need to think and approach things thoughtfully when entering the diversity sphere and make sure we are really adding something - not just trying to get grants and include minorities in the planning.
Core competencies - we need to go through each course, map to competencies, and edit. Reiterated that we need actionable, measurable goals that aren’t nebulous e.g. “understand.” Use arrange, demonstrate, describe, etc. Group proceeded to revise the competencies to remain relevant. Faculty must be contacted to ensure that the competencies addressed still correspond (SD).
Revised Core Competencies:
#1 Explain the nature of digital records and their lifecyle.
#2: Communicate and define terminology, requirements, roles, and responsibilities related to digital archives to a variety of stakeholders. .
#3: Formulate strategies and tactics for appraising, acquiring, describing, managing, organizing, preserving and delivering digital archives.
#4: Integrate technologies throughout the archival lifecycle.
#5: Strategically plan for the sustainability of digital archives. .
#6: Employ standards and best practices in the management of digital archives.
#7: Design a defined set of services for designated community.
Course development guidelines – when DAS was created, there were very few experts who were willing to develop our content resulting in DAS SC members having to “jump in” and either develop or, in some cases, take over from developers who were overwhelmed. DAS SC has tried to recruit development through traditional channels with little response and existing faculty aren’t keen on developing new courses. Five+ years later there should be more experienced people, and we need to make the process more open to bring in new blood and avoid coming across as “clubby.”
It was agreed to put out a general call with the caveat that some standards and expectations have to be made for course development. The following recommendations/thoughts emerged after a lengthy discussion:
De Sutter to put together language for next call. Electronic records section, should be first audience the call is sent to. Do the pilot and evaluate feedback.
DAS SC description – after some discussion it was decided to take mission statement from strategic plan – copy and paste into purpose. CoE will review the description, then send to Council for approval (SD)
Workflow document – the group streamlined the existing workflow guidelines. Ghaznavi to assemble chart and group to review.
Course liaison updates
Bishoff
Ghering
Ghaznavi
Legg
Lindberg
McAninch – created a review form with average approval ratings and summarized feedback from evaluations
Schaefer
Rosko
Future Conference calls and face-to-face meeting
Under development and/or to be developed:
Collaboration ideas/updates – Don’t want to endorse a brand or tool, but in some cases there are few tools out there so we need to present specific ones. Specific tool webinars age very quickly as tech changes or tools become refined in specific ways that are not helpful to us.
Adjournment