Hi Vibhaj, As Andrea mentioned, it's great to see you are interested in GSoC! I've added a few extra comments to what Andrea mentioned below. I also copied in the 'duraspace-gsoc' listserv, which is our DuraSpace GSoC list (however, it is good that you posted this message initially to 'dspace-devel' as that is probably the best place to get general comments from DSpace developers).
On 4/4/2011 11:39 PM, Andrea Schweer wrote: > On 05/04/11 16:13, Vibhaj Rajan wrote: >> In addition, I would like to know whether the project shall be >> targeted to making changes to the UI level only, or whether well >> planned modifications to underlying logic, without interfering with >> the workflow process but only to improve the UI will be allowed ? > > I assume that modifications to the underlying logic will also be > acceptable, as long as there is a good reason for the change. I expect > that this is something that would be worked out between the student, the > mentor(s) and the DSpace committers during the project. Andrea is correct -- changes to underlying logic would also be allowed, provided that the mentor(s) and DSpace committers were in favor of those changes. However, there are some issues around keeping this project well "scoped". I'd worry about trying to do *both* UI usability modifications, and major underlying logic changes, as I feel that would be too large of a project for just one summer. The project as it is now, was meant to concentrate more on improving the usability of the Submission UI, and perhaps other areas of the general DSpace UI (rather than completely reworking the underlying submission logic). More on this below.. >> I would be happy to get suggestions regarding this project idea. > > What I would really like to see in proposals for this project are > answers to the following questions: Where do you see the biggest > problems at the moment? How do these problems impact the experience of a > submitter? Do you have concrete suggestions for improvements? > > You may also have seen my comment on > https://wiki.duraspace.org/display/GSOC/DSpace+Summer+of+Code+Ideas > about making the submission process configurable via the web interface. > At the moment, the submission forms are defined using a couple of XML > files (see > https://wiki.duraspace.org/display/DSDOC/Submission+User+Interface if > you haven't found that page already). Only someone with shell access to > the DSpace server can change these files, and changes to the files > typically require DSpace to be restarted. Consequently, the people who > know best what metadata fields etc should be populated during submission > can't actually customise the submission process at all. The EasyDeposit > (http://blog.stuartlewis.com/2010/02/03/easydeposit-sword-deposit-tool-creator/) > administrator interface is a good example for a more user-friendly > variant, I think. Andrea gave you some ideas of places to potentially get started. Though, I'll admit, the idea of making the submission process configurable via the Web Interface is potentially a bit complex (i.e. it's likely out-of-scope for this particular GSoC project). For background on the complexities, see discussion here: https://wiki.duraspace.org/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=23268096&focusedCommentId=25068048#comment-25068048 So, a part of me feels that this particular GSoC project would need to be more tightly scoped to Improving UI Usability (or Accessibility or both). It would likely need to avoid digging into deeper issues of reworking the entire underlying workflow logic, as that could be a rather large project in itself. However, that being said, if we found a DSpace committer/mentor interested in mentoring that larger 'underlying logic' project, we could likely pull together a separate GSoC project which could *begin* that refactoring work (If any committer is interested in this, please get in touch!). But, I feel that's a separate GSoC project altogether, and shouldn't be combined with improvements to UI Usability or Accessibility. As you may be able to tell, this "Improve Submitter User Experience" project idea is less "defined" than some of the others, as it came up during discussions just last week. However, we do have some institutions (namely Ohio State University) which have done some recent usability studies on the Submission User Interface, who may be able to help us better define what areas of the UI may require extra work. Peter Dietz, one of our DSpace Committers, may be able to add more details around usability studies/work done at OSU, and what work he feels this GSoC project may encompass (I've copied him on this message). Please let us know if you have further questions about this project idea, Vibhaj. You are also welcome to apply for a different project idea, if you feel this one is not very well defined. - Tim -- Tim Donohue Technical Lead for DSpace Project DuraSpace.org ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Xperia(TM) PLAY It's a major breakthrough. An authentic gaming smartphone on the nation's most reliable network. And it wants your games. http://p.sf.net/sfu/verizon-sfdev _______________________________________________ Dspace-devel mailing list Dspace-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dspace-devel
