A RoadMap Process for VIVO

As an open source community, the VIVO Project relies on contributions of effort from its members. The VIVO strategic plan established the VIVO value proposition “VIVO provides an integrated view of the scholarly work of an organization” and two large scale goals supporting the value proposition: 1) Clarify and improve the value proposition; and 2) Promote a more open and networked research ecosystem. The roadmap process is designed to identify features and establish priorities that serve the value proposition and the strategic goals. The roadmap process follows basic principles of open source community development. First, it is open. All members of the community have an opportunity to participate in the roadmap process. Second, it serves the various constituents of the community. VIVO must serve end users, providing features that they can use in their daily work to advance scholarship. Data stewards and system administrators responsible for insuring local VIVO installations have quality data, and that the system accurately and effectively provides services to end-user must see improvement in VIVO relevant to their concerns. And finally, technologists, including developers, ontologists and committers must have environments and tools that support their productivity and creativity in enhancing VIVO. <br><br>In this poster we will present the VIVO roadmap process, describing its steps, its participants and the approach it takes to engaging the community and generating a prioritized set of features for future releases of VIVO. <br>