Closure Report

Project Summary

The College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (CAHSS) approached Project Services to assist them with delivering a Scottish Studies digital archive project. This project was planned to review the options for securing the future of the Tobar an Dualchais (TAD) oral recordings archive at http://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/en/, explore the benefits of creating a single archive from several collections and  identify possible sources for funding subsequent delivery project(s).

The project has been successful in delivering the variety of documents identified at the planning stage. These, and the number of discussions carried out over the time of the project, have helped to formulate a way forward for the Tobar an Dualchais project, with the recommendations engendered by the project team being well received by the external Steering Group. This success can be attributed to a combination of positive project leadership from the project sponsor, a strong team who were each able to contribute to the work of the project, and staff from Project Services who were interested in the theme of the project and empathetic to what was required.

Scope

The scope of this project included the following:

• To deliver an options appraisal on the possible solutions for a replacement to the current TaD service, delivered through EDINA, that meets the University's teaching, research, collections and outreach needs as well as those of our partners

• To understand and document relevant and appropriate resources elsewhere in the University including Catalogues, legacy applications, data and digitised collections

• To discover compatible thematic material relating to Scottish Life, Music and Culture to be explored to see how the content within TaD could be enhanced. This could include existing online resources such as the Calum Maclean project website

• To explore infrastructures for future projects, looking at one single solution, perhaps with multiple presentation options, to ensure that digital collections can be appropriately cared for and preserved while providing appropriate access to different audiences

• To identify possible sources for funding subsequent projects

• To understand and document the current relationship between UoE and SMO and other partners (such as BBC, NTS-Canna) and set out the basis for a sustainable future relationship with a formal Memorandum of Understanding or Agreements

• To set the ongoing digitisation and cataloguing strategy for the data and metadata generated by the TaD Project Team and the Scottish Studies Archive staff within Library services, in line with best practice and University of Edinburgh’s standards
• To seek to understand and define the UoE risk appetite for these digital collections, recognising that there are particular issues to consider for sound and ethnological collections. Consulting with UoE Legal and UoE Academic expertise as necessary. We need to ensure compliance with all relevant legislation, in particular GDPR, FOI and Copyright.  Identifying and clarifying rights and their management will be a crucial strand of work.

The scope of HSS028 did not include any work on the replacement site delivered by EDINA or any subsequent development or build work for a future site or solution.

Analysis of Resource Usage:

Staff Usage Estimate: 86 days

Staff Usage Actual: 90 days

Staff Usage Variance: 4.5%

Other Resource Estimate: na

Other Resource Actual: na

Other Resource Variance: na

Outcome

N.B. Because of confidentiality concerns,  all of the above deliverables are in a secure SharePoint directory managed by CAHSS.

Explanation for variance

• Effort

As can be seen from the figures above, the overall effort increased from the original estimate of 86 days to a final total of 90 days, an increase of 4 days. This rise is attributable to the need to extend the timescale of the project; with the longer duration, some more PM time was required. This was reported to, and approved by, the Programme Manager and the Project Sponsor.

• Time

There was two changes to the published milestones. The first of these was reported on 10 May (issue 1) and this moved the delivery milestone and original closure date out by approximately 5 weeks, with the project mooted to close in late June. This change was attributable to finding  a suitable date with the TaD team in Skye for our business analyst. This had to be moved out to mid-May which impacted the milestones as note above because of the subsequent time still needed after the visit to write up the reports and findings of this analysis.

The second change to the delivery and closure milestones was reported and approved in late June (issue 2) with more time requested to review and update the set of documentation by the wider project team. This was seen as necessary because of the wish to make recommendations to the external TaD steering group and allow for as wide a consultation as possible, taking leave plans for the range of stakeholders into consideration as well.

• Scope

There was no change to the scope, as the work was fully discussed and clearly set out by the wider project group at the planning stage. This helped to establish the parameters of what needed to be delivered, and these were closely followed.

Key Learning Points

Project stakeholders have fed the following points back to the Project Manager:

• In terms of lessons learned, I think we should mention the benefits of the trip to Skye [by our business analyst], that reaching out to the TAD team helped in re-invigorating the partnership, etc. I suppose the whole project felt a lot like a repair job on the collaboration and how they could work together going forward. In that sense, having all the partners, including academic staff, library, etc, helped in rebooting this group.
• Although this was an internal University of Edinburgh project, it involved close interaction with a key external stakeholder.  The University has long-standing and multi-stranded relationships with this stakeholder.  This project was one of two concurrent IS managed projects which involved them*.  Whilst the University clearly defined each as discrete projects, they were closely linked.  We learned that the stakeholder did not perceive the distinctions as clearly as we did.  Therefore it was important that the Project Managers agreed with the Project Sponsor and Project Team how to flag and manage points of contact as they arose.   *[The other project was the responsibility of EDINA]
• The project involved engagement with several colleagues and external stakeholders who are unfamiliar with formal IS Project Management approaches and unused to working in this way.  To support such colleagues with their participation in future projects, it would help to outline the project management approach at an early point.  It would also help to define the formal roles and responsibilities involved and to flag project jargon.  Providing links to resources may also help. 

For colleagues, refer to:  https://www.ed.ac.uk/information-services/computing/application-development/project-management/projman-resources

For external stakeholders, refer to: https://www.apm.org.uk/resources/what-is-project-management

Outstanding Issues

There are no outstanding issues.