[Eg-oversight-board] Call for agenda items

[Borger, Shauna]

Hello,

I would like to discuss my proposal to add upgrade management and testing to either the documentation or the wiki to encourage more consortia to collect testing data from their end users. Here is my explanation as it was provided to several members of the IOB several weeks ago:

I'm finally getting around to sharing with you some ideas that came out of the quality control testing phone call way back in July. As a small group, the participants on the phone call identified two main areas of Evergreen testing needed: 1) High-functioning system experts manipulate/refine the code. 2) End users contribute feedback on features in the staff client that *work* and *don't work*.

Since this is such a huge topic with a potential to bring together many consortia and individuals, I feel the most appropriate course of action is to focus on the area to which Evergreen Indiana staff feel they can contribute the most. I propose to create a formal set of documentation to facilitate and encourage end user testing within the context of preparing for an Evergreen upgrade, that can be made available either as a chapter in the official documentation or as a highly publicized page on the wiki.

Evergreen Indiana plans to upgrade to Evergreen 2.4 in December and I plan to use the documentation we are creating for that upgrade as the basis for the upgrade and testing documentation I'm proposing in this email. Here is a sketch of the steps we have included in our upgrade documentation for 2.4:


*         Local Evergreen team will create an online form (Example: Google) which lists basic staff client activities organized by user profiles. Example: Circ1 - Checkin, Checkout

*         They will then distribute the form to committees, user groups, other representatives in their community and ask them to fill it out the form by a specific date.

*         Staff in the community will work through the form based on their role with Evergreen and enter their comments, questions and concerns regarding the proposed version of Evergreen.

*         After the due date, internal staff review the feedback.

o   Comments identified as software functionality and workflow changes will be used to create training materials for preparing staff for the new version of Evergreen.

o   Comments identified as bugs should be entered by the local Evergreen team as such in Launchpad.

Some potential positive outcomes of providing upgrade and end user testing documentation for other Evergreen consortia include:


*         Saving individual consortia and Evergreen instances time by providing suggestions and an outline on how to manage a successful upgrade.

*         Soliciting, compiling and passing on more feedback from local end users to the Evergreen community at large in an organized and productive way.

*         Improving the Evergreen product in general by giving the developers, documenters and managers more feedback with which to work.

*         Increasing positive word of mouth feedback from librarians and other end users in the library field regarding the Evergreen ILS through smoother upgrades and more proactive systems for end user feedback.

I think this could be a great service to provide Evergreen users and I'm really excited about pursing it. Please let me know if you have questions, comments or feedback.


_______________
Shauna Borger
Professional Development Office
Indiana State Library
140 N. Senate Ave.
Indianapolis, IN  46204
Phone: (317) 232-3718
Fax: (317) 232-0002
sborger at library.in.gov




From: eg-oversight-board-bounces at list.evergreen-ils.org [mailto:eg-oversight-board-bounces at list.evergreen-ils.org] On Behalf Of Galen Charlton
Sent: Wednesday, September 25, 2013 4:10 PM
To: eg-oversight-board at list.evergreen-ils.org
Subject: [Eg-oversight-board] Call for agenda items

Hi,

Please send me any topics you would like discussed at the EOB meeting tomorrow.  I will be sending the agenda out mid-morning tomorrow.

Regards,

Galen
--
Galen Charlton
Manager of Implementation
Equinox Software, Inc. / The Open Source Experts
email:  gmc at esilibrary.com<mailto:gmc at esilibrary.com>
direct: +1 770-709-5581
cell:   +1 404-984-4366
skype:  gmcharlt
web:    http://www.esilibrary.com/
Supporting Koha and Evergreen: http://koha-community.org & http://evergreen-ils.org
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