Governance Group minutes 2019-10-29

Tuesday 29 October 2019, 15:00

Attendees: Petr Knoth (PK), Mick Eadie (ME), Paul Walk (PW), Nicola Dowson (ND), George Macgregor (GM - Chair),

Apologies: Kate O'Neill (KO)

Actions arising this meeting

The following actions arose from the meeting. They are as follows:

  1. PW to finalise updates to the RIOXX website ahead of publicising profile revisions and feedback via blog post.
  2. As per (1), PW to publish brief blog post for further dissemination by 08/11/2019.
  3. GM to alert relevant system user groups and digital service providers of revisions to RIOXX and the existence of the GitHub repository for capturing community feedback.
  4. GM to message Jisc-repositories, UKCORR, Code4Lib and ScholComm lists about (3).
  5. ME to post to EP-Tech list about (3).
  6. EVERYONE to disseminate (3) on social media channels, where applicable.
  7. GM to send minutes to PW for publication on RIOXX website.

1. Welcome

GM welcomed attendees and introduced ME, who was joining the RGG for the first time. GM reported that KO had also joined the RGG (although was not in attendance) and noted that Suzanne Atkins (SA) had decided to step down from the RGG in light of the recruitment of ME and KO.

Technical problems were encountered convening the meeting via Skype. PW set up a Zoom video conference session instead for the group. ME indicated that University of Glasgow used Zoom too and that the group could also use their Zoom account for future meetings, if necessary.

It was agreed that future meetings should be conducted using Zoom owing to its superior reliability.

2. Minutes of last meeting

RGG members were satisfied with the minutes of 23 September 2019.

3. Matters arising

GM reviewed the actions from the previous meeting:

  • GM to liaise with PW/Antleaf to publish minutes, charter, etc. on RIOXX channels and publicise.

GM confirmed that he had been liaising with PW on this matter. PW reported that he had started reorganising the RIOXX website and that work in this area should be completed very soon, thereby opening the door to publicising the reactivated status of RIOXX and soliciting revisions in coming weeks.

  • GM to work with PW to publicise GitHub repository in order to solicit requirements / change requests.

GM noted that PW had started documenting proposed revisions at the RIOXX GitHub repository via the Issues component of GitHub. GM reported that PK had documented additional proposals and that discussion on the merits of these changes were underway.

  • PK to liaise with Balviar Notay regarding Jisc involvement in the RGG, following a lack of feedback to several email approaches by GM. PK to feedback to the RGG.

RGG members congratulated PK on CORE receiving the OU's Outstanding Impact of Research on Society and Prosperity award. PK indicated that Balviar Notay (BN - Jisc) had attended the award ceremony and that she was unable to confirm whether Jisc would participate in the RGG. BN had intimated that she would make further enquiries at Jisc. PW reported that Helen Clare (née Blanchett) from Jisc was approached at the UKCORR Members' Day about the same matter. Dismay was expressed that Jisc involvement remained elusive.

It was agreed that the RGG should proceed with its work, with Jisc remaining welcome to join at a later date, if they wish.

  • GM to mail the UKCORR list to recruit a member(s) to participate in the RGG; Nicola to (possibly) step aside.

The attendance of ME (and KO) at the RGG was noted as confirmation that this action had been performed.

4. RIOXX revisions timetable & plan

GM proposed that the group appraise the documentation of RIOXX revisions, with a timetable for publicising revisions and soliciting new requirements, and asked PW whether he was aware of revisions which had not yet been recorded on GitHub. PW indicated that all current proposals for revision had now been recorded on GitHub but that additional proposals were likely to emerge from the forthcoming period of public feedback.

A series of technical discussions ensued about some of the proposed revisions, particularly around rioxxterms:publication_date, the difficulties in capturing ISO DTF dates for particular publications and how this might be treated in the revised RIOXX application profile.

PK reiterated his rationale for the creation of the new element rioxxterms:fulltext_deposit_date and noted its potential application within a wide variety of Open Access contexts, includting within the local context of the UK REF2021 Open Access Policy but also to monitor global Open Access growth and deposit speeds.

The ongoing validity of ali:free_to_read and its limitations were discussed, with many noting its redundancy in light of the fact that openness can be inferred from license_ref. PK also suggested that ali:free_to_read was superfluous since if a described digital object can be accessed by a machine it is to all intents and purposes was 'free to read'. RGG opinion suggested that ali:free_to_read should be deprecated and maintained within the revised profile as a 'deprecated' property, although it was acknowledged that the outcome of public feedback might result in its retention.

A brief general discussion about the global take-up of NISO indicators ensued.

It was agreed that PW would post an update to the RIOXX blog once the RIOXX website changes had been finalised. This post would publicise the website updates, would solicit revisions to the profile and would be shareable across notable listserves (e.g. Jisc-repositories, UKCORR, etc.) and social media channels. ME suggested circulation on the EP-Tech list.

GM noted a special need to ensure vendor engagement and volunteered to engage relevant user groups and digital service providers (e.g. CoSector, EDINA, EPrints Services, etc.). It was recommended that dissemination of the blog post should occur by 08/11/2019.

PW recommended that no deadline for feedback be associated with the announcement, a recommendation which was acknowledge by the RGG as very sensible.

5. AOB

There was no AOB.

6. DONM

It was agreed that a decision on the date for the next meeting should delayed until there a clearer idea of the volume and quality of sector engagement with the blog and GitHub repository.

GM will circulate a Doodle poll in due course.

GM 30/10/2019