BC IR Network: Software Selection Committee Call-Out

September 24, 2014

The BC Institutional Repository (IR) Network Advisory Committee is seeking members for its IR Software Selection Committee. Software Selection Committee members should ideally be involved, at a technical or policy level, in the development or exploration of an institutional repository at their institution. Please forward this message to others as appropriate at your institution.

Timelines for this project are short, so interested individuals should contact the BC ELN Office no later than Tuesday September 30th.

Background

The Ministry of Advanced Education (AVED), in collaboration with the Administrative Services Delivery Transformation (ASDT) Steering Committee, has awarded BC ELN funding to develop a Shared Digital Resources and Institutional Repository Network. This is a 2-year project: Year 1 is dedicated to selecting and launching IRs at individual post-secondary institutions (PSIs) around the province. Year 2 will be devoted to developing and launching a unified discovery layer, making accessible all scholarly information hosted in BC’s post-secondary IRs.

An important first step is selecting institutional repository software to support the IR Network. The BC IRN Advisory Committee has initiated the formation of an IR Software Selection Committee to deliver a recommendation on software no later than December 2014.

What will the Software Selection Committee do?

The BC IR Network Software Selection Committee (SSC) will be responsible for developing an RFQ for BC’s provincial IR software, evaluating vendor submissions, inviting community feedback, and recommending an IR software solution to the BC IR Network Advisory Committee.

Due to the tight timeline, SSC committee work will be very intensive from October through December 2014, involving at times weekly teleconference meetings and frequent review of documents.

Who will select committee members from the nominees?

Once nominees have been identified, the Advisory Committee will make the final selection with the goal of achieving balanced representation from different types and sizes of institutions.  The SSC will have a maximum of 5-6 members; one member will be Elizabeth Padilla (BCIT) from the Advisory Committee, who will act as liaison between the 2 committees.

If you are interested in participating on the SSC or nominating someone, please reply to the BC ELN Office no later than Tuesday, September 30. 

If you have any questions about the SSC, please conact Sunni Nishimura, BC ELN Manager.