Week 9
August 9, 2012: Applying what we learned from the user survey to make concrete suggestions for how to improve the content of the DMPTool and continuing to push the marketing campaign
New and Improved:
The moment has finally arrived! Its time to take what I have learned from the user test and apply it to the DMPTool in order to actually make suggestions on how to improve the content. Of course this excitement and hope for an improved tool comes with a fair share of limitations and caveats that must also be acknowledged. First I will point out a couple of the major limitations that I see at this point, then I will explain which sections that I will be focusing on.
Limitations:
1) The limited number of user surveys actually completed:
As I have mentioned in the past, only 3 of the 8 users who received the survey has completed it. Also, specific comments about the tool and the tools limitations (from this user’s perspective) was only included in 1 of the 3 survey responses received. Essentially I will be using 1 user test to make suggestions for improved content
2) The limited amount of suggested improvements:
As all 3 of my used the NSF-BIO template to complete their survey, I will largely be making suggestions to that specific template, rather than for a greater number of templates or the general layout of the tool. However, I plan to use this in my marketing campaign… as I am focusing on this template in particular, I can make argument for the BIO community that the tool is being improved with this specific community in mind.
The following list indicates which sections of the DMPTool that I will be focusing on for content improvements.
1). NSF-BIO template: 1. Products of Research:
One of the respondents noted that on this section of the NSF-BIO template, that the sentence of the help section which states, “how will you capture or create the data?”…. might be interpreted differently depending on the background of the researcher.
I take a look at this as well as the other help sections for this template to see where we might be able to slim down, or explain more in certain areas. As this respondent also noted that in certain areas the list
2) NSF-BIO template: One of the respondents noted that they would like more help with additional standards for data (e.g. NetCDF, OpenDAP, FASTA, Shapfile) and also metadata standards.
I will figure out what additional information to include and where to put it in order to make it most effective and not cluttered
3) General: One of the respondents made a suggestion to create an overview of the entire plan template prior to going through each section because this researcher found herself repeating things as she went through the tool.
4) General: All 3 respondents indicated an interest in a community forum.
I will consider possibilities of where this forum could link to and how it would integrate with the tool, provide support, etc.
5) I will comb through the NSF-BIO template and regardless of survey responses, will make suggestions about improved content.
Do these sound like valuable contributions?
Marketing Campaign:
As stated above, I think that 2 of my major hooks will be that we are focusing on improving the BIO template in particular and also capitalize on any upcoming deadlines for NSF grants. The following grant proposals are due prior to the DataONE All.-Hands Meeting:
1)Advances in Biological informatics: due September 10
2) ArcticSEES (ArcSEES): due September 14
3) Innovation Corps Program: due September 15 (is this a real proposal?)
Due shortly after the All-Hands Meeting, which may still be a good idea to promote:
4) Advancing Digitization of Biodiversity Collections: due October 19
5) Collaborative Research in Computational Neuroscience: due November 2
6) Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grants in the Directorate for Biological Sciences (DDIG): due November 9
I am still concerned about how to get the messages out, since I agree with what Carly was saying yesterday, that the librarians who are responsive may not have the direct contact with the researchers. I think getting the messages out on listservs at departments might be a good idea.
I think I am going to focus on the ABI award and continue thinking about how to get the message out there, since that seems to be the biggest point of confusion and blockage that I am experiencing at this juncture.
Thanks All,
Rachel