Objective
Workflow for activities to follow to implement and operate Virtual Research Environments
The Workflow description describes the activities that can be followed to implement and operate Virtual Research Environments. The main aim of this document is to provide a generic description of the workflow which is useable for different institutions. A possible complication is that each library is organised differently, and that responsibilities have been assigned in many different ways. This document tries to avoid references to names of functions or organisational units.
Roles
Four main roles will be distinguised:
- Research support (RS): main contact person for the research community.
- Functional Support (FS): responsibility for the correct functioning of the software, in line with the functional requirements of the research community
- Technical support (TS): responsibility for the technical infrastructure.
- Programme Management (PM): coordination of which VRE’s are actually offered by an organisation.
Organisations evidently decide internally how these various roles will be assigned. Research support is often a responsibility of subject librarian or information specialists. In certain situations, one person may also carry out multiple roles. A staff member of an ICT department may be responsible for both the functional and the technical support, and the person who interacts with the research team (RS) may also coordinate the entire VRE programme (PM). At the same time, one role may also be the responsibility of two different people. An organisation may choose to appoint one person who is in charge of all VRES for the sake of continuity. Nevertheless, during conversations with research teams, this person may also be accompanied by a subject librarian, depending on the discipline. The rol ‘research support’, in that situation, will be carried out by two different people.
Lifecycle of VRE
The workflow description focuses on the entire lifecycle of VREs, from the moment it is requested by the research team to the moment it is deleted. In this cycle, three main stages can be distinguished:
- implementation
- deployment
- deletion.
All activities belong to either one of these stages. For all activities, the persons involved will be identified, and, if applicable, end products and tools will be mentioned. If one activity can be carried out in different ways, these will alternatives will also be discussed.
In this document, no estimations are made of the amount of time needed for each activity. This depends strongly on the way in which these activities are organised within an institution. In general, learning the functional requirements and configuring the VRE will be the most labour-intensive activities.