[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] ***SPAM*** Re: generic training server with predictable data

[Don Butterworth]

Hello everyone, 

My name is Don Butterworth. I am the Head of Technical Services at Asbury Theological Seminary and have been lurking on this list for the last couple of months. Late last year our library migrated from Horizon to Symphony. After having worked with the cataloging and acquisitions modules for over six months, it is my personal opinion that our department's efficiency has been reduced by at least 20%. Because of that, if I can convince the "powers that be," I hope to set up an Evergreen test database here on campus, so that we can get a feel for the software, workflow, and level of IT involvement. Then, when the Acquisitions module is released in 2.0, thoroughly test it to see if it is a viable alternative to Symphony. 

I have files of OCLC MARC records, for all of last year's acquisitions, which I plan to import as our test database; about 10,000 records. If it is legal, I believe I can convince our administration to contribute them to an RSCEL training server, if that would be helpful. 

Don 

Don Butterworth 
Faculty Associate / Librarian III 
B.L. Fisher Library 
Asbury Theological Seminary 
don.butterworth at asburyseminary.edu 
(859) 858-2227 

The opinions expressed are strictly my own and should not be considered as any official opinion, endorsement or statement by Asbury Theological Seminary. 

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Lori Bowen Ayre" <lori.ayre at galecia.com> 
To: "Evergreen Discussion Group" <open-ils-general at list.georgialibraries.org> 
Sent: Monday, June 21, 2010 8:51:25 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern 
Subject: Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] generic training server with predictable data 

Oooooh. Like that suggestion. No reason we couldn't keep the same data set on an available training server AND on as part of the Evergreen source. 


Lori 





On Mon, Jun 21, 2010 at 5:45 PM, Dan Scott < dan at coffeecode.net > wrote: 



On Mon, 2010-06-21 at 17:09 -0700, Lori Bowen Ayre wrote: 
> Hi All, 
> 
> I posted info about this idea and got a big 'ol nothing in response so 
> I wanted to try one more time to verify that it really is of no 
> interest to anyone. 

It is of interest, I just have a slight variation on your suggestion 
which really hearkens back to a suggestion I pitched many moons ago. (I 
think the first time might have been 
http://markmail.org/message/dbwre7cqhmmnnlrv but I know I've discussed 
it in several other forums since then...) 


> Here's the idea....as one of the RSCEL projects, were thinking of 
> setting up a training server which would have a current version of 
> Evergreen loaded, would be accessible to anyone (much like the demo 
> servers) but we'd make sure we kept it totally current with one 
> matching client software download. 
> 
> 
> We'd also keep data in there that you could rely on being there for 
> training (so we'd have to refresh it on some regular basis). 
> Eventually, we'd contribute some exercises that people could use in 
> their training which would use that training server and data. 
> 
> 
> The idea is that you would then not have to worry about how to train 
> your people on your own Evergreen server at the same time you were 
> trying to get ready to go live. 
> 
> 
> Also, by sharing the same data and server set-up, we could all 
> contribute training exercises. 
> 
> 
> So, if you think this would be useful or you think it would be a waste 
> of time...please advise. Friendly amendments are also encouraged. We 
> want to do something that helps people so if this wouldn't help 
> anyone, we RSCELs will focus our attention somewhere else! 
> 

Rather than having this data sitting just on a training server RSCEL, I 
think it would be much more useful to have the sample data sets 
available as part of the Evergreen source. This would enable every 
Evergreen install to (optionally) have a reference set of data to work 
with locally. We could build documentation / training based on those 
sample sets of data, but also build tests on those sample sets of data 
to ensure that the SQL schema hasn't been broken & the data can actually 
load, a given server is working as expected, and that a given report 
returns the expected results, and that a given API call generates the 
expected effects. 

This could also be a useful basis on which to build tests of the 
migration scripts. 

I do think that having an up-to-date training server always at the ready 
would be a valuable thing and support that goal; I just think that it's 
potentially more important to have a canonical set of sample data 
available as part of the Evergreen source. 


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