COMET, PAGE and Unidata are investigating development of a common strategy to support information sharing within their communities. This general statement can be used to cover some very large projects including some of the work that may be proposed under NSF's KDI. It also has provoked discussion on the high level architecture of information technology support for community information sharing. Content sharing is a major focus within this larger context.
Object oriented community-information tools will fit into this framework at a smaller scale. These tools will provide integrated support for community access lists, and possibly for access to community email archives.
Completion of the work outlined here will result in initial object oriented community-information tools ready for beta test deployment within the target organizations. As part of the development process, a set of initial requirements and design documentation will also be produced.
At recent meetings, the following set of objectives for near-term application development were discussed:
Beta test deployment by the first of July `98.
Use existing, off-the-shelf components when possible.
Ensure interoperability of the Object Oriented Community-Information Tools (OOCIT) with other tools by conformance to standard interfaces where applicable.
Involve users in the design process. This involvement may include use case generation, feature prioritization and user interface design reviews.
This proposal is based on information gathered during meetings with staff from the involved organizations, and on perusal of web pages in the neighborhood of http://fanny.unidata.ucar.edu/Page/CommunityAccess.html.
Given a start date of 3/1/98, the following milestones will be met:
Ben Domenico, David Himes, others TBD.
On a more limited basis, Dave Fulker, Susan Jesuroga, and Mary Marlino.
Cornelia Stinchcomb, David Leberkight
This plan document will be iteratively updated during the development process. Project objectives and scope will be completed as soon as possible. This will permit better scheduling of the initial analysis and design activities. The plan will be enhanced to include an implementation schedule and feature list towards the end of analysis and design.
A minimal set of requirements and design documentation will be produced. This documentation will include a brief requirements specification, an initial user interface design and a high level system architecture document.
The requirements document contains the following information:
User interface design describes look-and-feel and work flow. Documentation contains
A brief architectural design document will
be prepared to record system design and assist
technology transfer and maintenance. This document will provide an overview
of the Object Oriented Community-Information Tools implementation architecture
and show how this tool fits into the larger context of community information
sharing.
A deployment diagram showing software modules mapped to typical deployment hardware will be included.
A minimal set of on-line user documentation will be produced.
Delivery of Object Oriented Community-Information Tools source code and executables suitable for beta test deployment.
This section describes the tasks that will be undertaken in order to produce the deliverables described in this proposal, then presents their schedule.
Analysis will be performed using an overlapping-task approach. First:
After the plan has been accepted:
Risks will be cataloged here as they become evident. Any risks that we feel might jeopardize the success of the product will be brought to UCAR's immediate attention.
Reviews and timely feedback are essential to meeting project goals and deadlines. Feedback must be received within four working days of the review to be incorporated. The following specific reviews are recommended. Dates are tentative. Review meetings will be supplemented by electronic mail, and individual voice and conference calls as required.