M25 Director Services Task & Finish Group Minutes

The following are the Minutes of the Meeting held on 6, October 2008 at London School of Economics Library.

Present: Genein Cox-De Sousa, Robert Hall, Rosemary Lynch (Chair), Julia Munro, Ann Murphy, Pete Ryan

1. Welcome, Apologies for absence
Emma Bull and Joanna Newman sent their apologies

2. Meetings on 8th May and 9th July 2008
Notes from last meeting were circulated

• A Wiki was suggested as the platform for Discussion Boards at May meeting – a final decision awaits the filling of the new support post.
• Definitions of support Directors might be willing to give – e.g. mentoring is still pending.

3.  Brief for Directors’ Room
The initial project spec was reviewed and the T&F Group were happy about the brief in general.

The following key aspects were agreed:

• Profile and Directory of expertise interchangeable
• Password re-set – ask technical team to establish password management process
• Additional privileges for administrators – administrative function is required to support the Director’s Room - support team need to establish requirements to do so – all team will need full access rights
• Selection of key terms – group to agree original list with regular update possibly via an M25 survey or via trends identified in “other” field. Steering group to manage this in long term
• In first instance relatively small list of key subjects – if this develops might need a thesaurus facility - advice from systems team required
• Personal profile should have drop down menu of headings for key areas with sub headings to select from. T&F Group to decide on headings - PR to send list he’s compiled for group to comment on after checking against memberships specified requirements and SCONUL top concerns. GC can include headings as part of her project survey.
• Profile Input should be by subject heading but directory search by alphabetical list of terms
• Discussion Boards - Systems team should take decision on how these work but group had agreed to explore Web2 technology
• Who can upload and download documents and what should the time limit be? It is intended as an interactive forum not a long term document store or archive. Archiving discussion for a 6 month period is desirable but group need advising whether or not the CMS can handle this as an automatic process and if not what process should be used. Members should be encouraged to upload documents or photos for sharing appropriate  to discussion topics only when not publicly available on member’s institutional website.
• Group/ Learning Set/Sub-groups will be set up and will be open to all members
• Director awareness – monthly news alert about new topics - systems team to advise how this might work as a marketing initiative in first instance. System needs capacity to set up RSS feed.
• No separate area for supplier/service information.
• Role of systems administrator does not include leading on group discussion – T&F Group might need to lead in first instance.
• Map – links from Inform 25
• Profile does not ask for personal information, but photographs would be welcome.
• To carry on existing working group issues through Director’s Room – eg RDGW wiki, WG chairs of WGs will be expected to feed in relevant information. – The Steering Group will be asked to support this.
• T&F Group feel that the spec after amendments from today’s meeting is ready for comment by the Support team.

Next meeting – discussion of profile template and definitions of buddying, mentoring etc.

Action: GCD to amend the spec based on the discussions above and circulate to the group and the Support Team.

4. Exchange Programme
Another M25 Exchange session pre launch of the Director’s Room was felt necessary. It was decided to build on the Leadership and Management theme of the first session. Options were for members to continue discussion in an informal session or to identify a different speaker to do a similar session to that of Di Martin.

Action: RL agreed to write to Maxine Melling, Christine Fyfe and Elizabeth Heaps to see if one of them was available and willing to do a pre-Christmas afternoon session followed by drinks and mince pies.

Action: RH agreed to make enquiries about a central London venue.
It was noted that CPD25 is looking at support for leadership support and mentoring sessions.

5. Action Plan
The group’s Action Plan was reviewed and it was felt that the group was on track with addressing the feedback received from Members.

6. Annual Report
The group noted the text on the work of the Task & Finish Group to be included in the M25 Annual Report 2007-08.

7. Schedule of meetings for 2008/09
The following meeting dates were agreed. All to take place at the LSE Library.

• Monday November 10th pm
• Monday January 12th pm
• Wednesday March 4th pm
• Thursday May 7th pm
• Monday July 6th pm

8. Any other business
There was no other business.

Ann Murphy
Secretary