WP5.3 - Announcement of Survey
This is just to let the community know that I have been asked by Jane Smith to prepare the Requirements Document for the European Virtual Library of Taxonomic Literature (E-ViTL). My aim is finish the report by 6th June. It should then provide a set of criteria, related to user requirements and technical specifications, that will allow tendering for a system to take place.
I am currently in the process of capturing user requirements. Following brainstorming with fellow scientists at NHML, and attendance at the recent WP6 Meeting, I have set up an online questionnaire, which everyone in the EDIT Community is invited to participate - so tell your friends and colleagues! I shall also extend the invitation via the TAXACOM and TDWG listservers.
The survey can be found at: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?A=193016818E830
I shall run the survey until Friday 11th May and shall then start writing the requirements report.
In addition to the questionnaire there is also a debate starting on the WP6 Web Revisions Forum, which you are invited to contribute to: http://www.editwebrevisions.info/forum/17. Alternatively you can always e-mail your thoughts and comments to me : c.hussey (at) nhm.ac.uk.
NOTE: E-ViTL is likely to be a resource discovery tool rather than a repository of full text articles. It could, however, point users to repositories, such as the Biodiversity Heritage Library (http://bhl.si.edu/), online journals and other sources.
There is some debate over whether E-ViTL should attempt to provide reference management functions, in addition to providing access to literature. Also, whether it should be a repository for reference lists, rather than a portal to search distributed repositories. However, the purpose of this survey is to gather user requirements and, although it is unlikely that E-ViTL will be able to incorporate all possible requirements, your views will provide a useful pointer for future development.
Thank you all for your interest.
Charles Hussey