Collaboration, Not Chaos: Managing Collaborative Project Work
Start Date
15-10-2014 2:30 PM
End Date
15-10-2014 4:30 PM
Description
The flexibility and small size of the liberal arts college library naturally leads to collaboration across institutional lines, and even more so in the creation of digital scholarship. This summer, Haverford College Libraries undertook multiple cross-departmental and institutional digital projects, each with its own challenges. Three of these projects serve as illustrative examples of collaborative digital scholarship at Haverford. The Cope Evans Project: a web-based data visualization project using transcribed special collections materials, involving undergraduates, library staff, and special collections staff. It was built using Django, the D3 and Mapbox.js Javascript libraries, and a Bootstrap theme. The Bridge: a teaching tool that allows Classics students and teachers to build customized Greek and Latin vocabulary lists developed by undergraduates, library staff, and a faculty member. It was built in Django with custom Bootstrap styling. The Solidarity Economy: a qualitative and quantitative social science research project, involving undergraduates, Haverford library staff, Haverford faculty, an outside technology consultant, and faculty and graduate students from other institutions. This project involves GIS mapping, a PostGIS database hosted on a local Geoserver, and the Qualtrics survey platform. Our work on these and other projects raised many questions surrounding the planning, management, and coordination of cross-departmental and cross-institutional project work. We learned valuable lessons about structuring and planning projects, managing stakeholder expectations (and our own), and how to support multiple technical frameworks for each project. We also learned how capable our undergraduates are when they are given significant responsibilities and allowed to learn new skills on the job. We look forward to sharing our experiences and lessons learned on working with faculty, staff, and students.
Type
Presentation
Session
#s5: Institutional Models for Digital Scholarship and Collaboration, chair Param Bedi
Language
eng
Location
Elaine Langone Center, Center Room
Collaboration, Not Chaos: Managing Collaborative Project Work
Elaine Langone Center, Center Room
The flexibility and small size of the liberal arts college library naturally leads to collaboration across institutional lines, and even more so in the creation of digital scholarship. This summer, Haverford College Libraries undertook multiple cross-departmental and institutional digital projects, each with its own challenges. Three of these projects serve as illustrative examples of collaborative digital scholarship at Haverford. The Cope Evans Project: a web-based data visualization project using transcribed special collections materials, involving undergraduates, library staff, and special collections staff. It was built using Django, the D3 and Mapbox.js Javascript libraries, and a Bootstrap theme. The Bridge: a teaching tool that allows Classics students and teachers to build customized Greek and Latin vocabulary lists developed by undergraduates, library staff, and a faculty member. It was built in Django with custom Bootstrap styling. The Solidarity Economy: a qualitative and quantitative social science research project, involving undergraduates, Haverford library staff, Haverford faculty, an outside technology consultant, and faculty and graduate students from other institutions. This project involves GIS mapping, a PostGIS database hosted on a local Geoserver, and the Qualtrics survey platform. Our work on these and other projects raised many questions surrounding the planning, management, and coordination of cross-departmental and cross-institutional project work. We learned valuable lessons about structuring and planning projects, managing stakeholder expectations (and our own), and how to support multiple technical frameworks for each project. We also learned how capable our undergraduates are when they are given significant responsibilities and allowed to learn new skills on the job. We look forward to sharing our experiences and lessons learned on working with faculty, staff, and students.