E-delivery of audio from the holdings of the Sound Archive will facilitate the New York Library in making an exceptional contribution to the latest training setting for NY higher education, and will offer pointers to the enormous unexploited resources that lie beyond the very minute but convincing collection of tapes to be integrated in this project, hence contributing to the New York Library vision of assisting individuals in advancing knowledge with a view of enriching lives.
Project objective
The ASRP will offer unlimited access, at the level of provision, to the program contents for the higher education industries in the United States. Access will as well be offered to American library facilities. Free access will in addition be provided over the e-site to a percentage of the content theme based on eligibility status. The ASRP will offer 10 Content Products representing an expansive variety of Sound Record holdings.
Project scope
Project deliverable
Organizational impact
The ASRP requires input from the following departments of the NY library:
This ASRP’s packages will have a functional influence on the following sections:
Dependencies
Project approach
- Substantial study has been carried out with a view of proposing solution to the JISC for selection and for the purpose of developing a proposal for financing from the JISC and for the content collection procedure.
- Content has been approved by a team of professionals and the Verification Template approved by the SRO. The final selection of content (i.e. ten Content Products – 5 from 15 by NY Library and five from the remaining ten by the higher education community) will be submitted to the Program Panel for approval.
- A sample will allow response on the provision of recorded content over the e-site and will result in the establishment of user interfaces. The trial product is to be financed through The JISC under a separate allotment of financing and will be administered at Digitization Program position with inputs from the Archival Audio Recordings Project (Public Procurement Directorate, 2008).
- During the Program Initiation phase the Program Team will be requested to approve the Program Document and the Program Initiation Brief. The two documents to be evaluated by CPO.
- The sample digitization assignment will be conducted by the program group and will appear as 600 second prototypes across all the content products. Such packages will be examined through a Beta interface framework which will be based on usability tests. This procedure is to be recorded in the e-site register.
- The verification of the e-site is subject to acceptance by the board. Suggestions for validation will be forwarded to the Program Team for approval.
- During the Audio Processing phase, the Program Team will be requested to approve an Audio Template. This matrix will be utilized in communicating the development of content to the Program Team. It ought to be approved at the closure of the program by the Program Manager and will indicate that all agreed materials have been digitized.
- The e-site register ought to as well be verified at the end of this phase demonstrating that all e-site deliverables are integrated based on the strategy outlined in the Website Strategy Brief.
- The program’s results will be communicated to the Sponsor as per the original dissemination plan. The final brief will be determined by the NY Library and the Sponsor once the suppliers have been selected and a final implementation timetable written (Islam & Bhuiyan, 2011). Program assessment will be carried out by a self-governing evaluator. The report to be finalized one month prior to end of the program to enable remedial actions if necessary.
Fit with Organizational Strategic Plan
The New York Library was approached by the JISC to tender for financing for digitization programs as part of the Joint Information System Committee availability and archiving strategic plan. This chance emerged from an intrinsic JISC financing avenue known as the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR).
This program is one of five programs being financed via the CSR Digitization program. The project as well involves the NY Library’s 19th century magazine program. Joint Information System Committee’s choice of the Audio Archiving proposal indicates the increasing attention to digital content from the United States educational community.
This solution was adopted by the NY Library as an excellent fit with its expansion plan for the electronic archiving of its library materials.
Anticipated benefits
The ASR program will make an important contribution to the adoption of the New York Library’s goal of increasing access to its materials. It In addition reacts to the demands from the U.S. higher education sector, articulated via the Joint Information System Committee, for the access of the digital content with a view of supporting schooling. The project will attain this by allowing:
- Unlimited access to an assortment of audio tapes and related pictures characterized by 10 content products derived from the selections of the NY Library Audio Records, comprising verbal history consultations, different genres of literature, radio adverts and music. The collections will be authorized for learning purposes and delivered to educational consumers as primary study material.
- Unlimited access to an extensive variety of exceptional training and/or learning resources previously handy only in UK-based classrooms.
- The capability of integrating corresponding and explicit academic data stored in the form of electronic records along with the collection of reference materials usually accessible for research, training and e-learning.
- In the future the lessons learned from this program will facilitate the Audio Record to enhance availability of its contents and to deliver on major organization objectives.
Cost estimates/cost benefit analysis
Special fund sources
- The Joint Information System Committee has given simply over a million pounds to The NY Library for the ASR project and budget allocations have been approved. Any additional item requires authorization by the project committee that this addition is important.
- NY Library responsibility systems to be utilized for intrinsic monetary controls. Any deliverable agreed between the Joint Information System Committee and the Library is to be delivered as per the timescale.
- Six monthly financial reports to be submitted to the Joint Information System Committee indicating expenditure alongside estimated budget.
- All program group economic spending to be documented by the program assistant staff and checked by the program group head and program manager. Program manager to offer an exemption report to the program committee in case of an estimate of expected budget exemptions.
Risks
The preservation of the risk record is the role of the program leader and its analysis that of the program committee. The rise of risks is to be carried out in consultation between the program committee and the program leader. Input from the program group will be dealt with firstly via the revising of the Issue Record.
Any fresh risk or emerging concerns will then be integrated into the Risk Record for analysis by the program board and the project committee. As identified risks my turn out to be issues, the issue record, in turn, will be revised with a view of reflecting these risks (Islam & Bhuiyan, 2011).
The major risks comprise erroneous cost approximations at the proposal level, ambiguity at program initiation period about website-hosting options and expected costs, judicious approval of content collection, and the challenges and cost of IP authorization. The administration of such uncertainties is supported by an inclusive risk record, occasionally handled by exemption to the program committee for corrective measure where required (“Project Origination”, 2001).
Summary of program schedule
The program begins with the program manager on the ground at the beginning of October 2012, and will continue for the next 2 years until the end of October 2014, at which point the electronic-based services will be working with all ten audio products available.
Constraints and assumptions
Organizational structure
Communication plan
Stakeholder analysis
Communication strategy
Negotiations based on timetabling of project activities with the suppliers will automatically update the extrinsic communication of information concerning major deliverables and extrinsic communication plans will be agreed once the suppliers have been selected. The completion date for such selection is 18/10/2012.
- It is proposed that November would be an excellent period for since there are frequently breaks in press releases worthy legends at such period (CHUA, 2001).
- The program committee comprises all NY Library units with stakes in the program and the Joint Information System Committee via their member and the higher education representative.
- Regular bulletins will as well guarantee that development is communicated more broadly in the NY Library and to the Joint Information System Committee.
- A printed timetable of actions and events will be developed alongside the Joint Information System Committee Dissemination Strategy (Islam & Bhuiyan, 2011).
Project quality administration strategy
- Quality will be determined against NY Library audio record specifications for digital storage and as well against all other specifications agreed with the suppliers.
- Data will be certified by sampling for any error and lacking explanations alongside the NY Library Plan.
- Agreement on any standard will update the discussion with the suppliers and this will lead to a cycle of benchmarking process alongside which quality will be determined via sampling by the program group.
- Quality concerns are to be integrated in the program team’s standard report to the program committee.
- Completion of quality assurance schedules to be disseminated to the program committee via the digitization template (Islam & Bhuiyan, 2011).
Acceptance criteria
The functional surrender of the website and hosting criteria will be submitted to the New York Library thirty six months after the program closure. In the provisional functional administration will be carried out by an independent supplier based on an administration SLA.
Sustainability plan
- Any documentary copy will be treated as a component of audio record holdings before final integration into DCAM.
- All available documents will be attached to the agreed web-hosting platform.
- Function and preservation will be the role of the NY facility for thirty six months from November 2014. An Entire Service Administration Agreement will be integrated with a view of ensuring this.
- Fresh Service Level Agreements will then be integrated and form the foundation of the agreement for continuing website service for this program. This will be preserved for the thirty six months after project closure.
- A sustainability strategy will be developed for the integration of the contents into the NY Facility DCAM by 2013.
References
CHUA, P. (2001). The initiation, organization and logistics of part-time final-year projects. International Journal of Engineering Education, 17(3), 248-254.
Islam, S. & Bhuiyan, U. (2011). The association between project success and project initiation phase: A study on some selected projects in Bangladesh. European Journal of Business and Management, 3(12), 60-68.
Public Procurement Directorate. (2008). Public procurement best practice guide (no. 1.1). Canberra, Australia: Author.
Project Initiation. (2001). In D. Chan (Ed.) NYS Project Management Guidebook (pp. 51-126). New York: Information Technology Press.
Project Origination. (2001). In D. Chan (Ed.) NYS Project Management Guidebook (pp. 21-45). New York: Information Technology Press.