Considerations, questions, notes

Overall

• IDI as, essentially, a directory service?
• Contacts, equipment/facilities/spaces, mailing lists, projects, tools, calendars, etc.; easy to find directory of all these assets?
• Ability to find items, add items, manage directory?
• More project-centric, instead of IDI-centric? Who'd be using infrastructure services (e.g., mailing lists, repositories, etc.)?
• One-click installs, like an ISP

Booking (high priority)

• Need more clarity on bookable equipment, spaces, facilities--what's bookable, what's not? Not every line item on the budget is bookable
• Need to categorize bookable items
• How does the user book something? (mobile item, big item, physical space, software, etc.)
• How much transparency? Will we show who's booking items? Or will we have Craigslist-like obfuscation? Maybe we can provide privacy options (e.g., public by default, but option to keep booking information private)
• How do we enforce/encourage timely returns?
• How are the bookings bound to a person--via their IDI account, email, etc.
• How are the items delivered or picked up? Are all items stored at the same place? What happens when items are across sites?
• What if an item is booked at one site, but is needed immediately at the next? Does it go through the "central" facility first?
• How are items returned? Who/how is it checked back into the system?
• Need clarity on booking process
• What do we do when an item is overdue?
• Or lost, misplaced?
• Are there legal issues with items crossing over borders? (e.g., a partner in the US wants to borrow something; or, one of the Ontario researchers wants to bring it to Egypt on a business trip)
• Software licenses--can we loan these out?

Member directory (medium priority)

• Can we also provide online communication?
• E.g., webchat--communicate with a live person
• E.g., IDRC chat server, or web-based IRC channel
• Voice chat server?

Member accounts

• Do we allow anyone to register?
• How do we validate users (i.e. users who are from member organizations / partners) vs. users from the broader community?

Mailing lists (medium priority)

• Maybe a single interface for the user for managing all his/her multiple subscriptions (e.g., everyone@idrc, fluid-work, fluid-talk, design-commits, etc.)
• Ways to create your own mailing list on the fly
• Who is using these mailing lists? And for what?
• Advantage/disadvantage vs. forums?

• Is using a user-driven content site design, then it may be possible to not have to use mailing lists at all. Similar to user groups on social sites - that is where collaboration and sharing occurs, not necessarily on a list.

Knowledge management (medium-light priority)

• Document sharing, via wiki, via other knowledge management systems?
• What (content and format of) documents will be shared, between whom, and for what purpose?

Tools, training (medium priority)

• General resources for both IDI members and the public
• Training: Design handbook, OSDPL, ILH, Greg's accessibility course, etc.
• Tools: AChecker, Infusion, etc.

Calendar (medium priority)

• ... of events of interest
• Google calendar of events and holidays
• And bookings (equipment, spaces)
• What about project roadmaps, or project calendars?
• Directory of IDI project calendars?
• Directory of individual schedules? (self-published)
• What do we do if projects use different calendar platforms?

Real-time conferencing (low priority)

• Video conferencing
• IRC
• Virtual meeting rooms, white boards, collaboration spaces
• Small vs. big: person-to-person (WebEx, Breeze, Skype, IRC, iChat, BigBlueButton) vs. spaces-to-spaces (e.g., Cisco telepresence)
• Archiving, history, logs

Development infrastructure (low priority)

• One-click installs?

Who is the Audience?

• IDRC
  • how will the idrc use it?
  • what will make it useful?
  • not all work?
  • link to other web presences.
  • What is it that the idrc wants to communicate through the site?
    • what is the meaningful content and how deep

• Members of participating
  • are they using the site the same way as the IDRC?
  • (What does the grant say? What are their needs?)
  • What kind of work are they doing in the grant?
  • Is it similar to the project based work of the IDRC? Yes / no.
  • Decision tree, or try something different if it fails.

• no institutional affiliation
  • designers, and developers
  • is there a difference in the interactions if you were a designer vs. a developer?
  • what information is needed to get plugged in.
  • what is the idi, who is involved - organizations, community leaders and academics
  • what is the idi doing? Topics.
  • where do they go if their question isn't answered?
  • business: what resources does the IDI provide to help make their business practices and presence more inclusive?

• end user: what does the end user get from the IDI?
  • are services being offered?
  • what kind of research is being offered of interest?

• General questions
  • did we get everyone? Can you think of a scenario?
  • what does the grant say

What is the IDI?

• How did this institution was formed (story)? why is it important?
• What is the need?
• Where is the IDI? Does geographic location matter?
  • How do we communicate the fact that the IDI is a physical location and a international / virtual center?
• How do we demonstrate that this is a center of expertise?
  • history, success
  • confidence in the center
    • credentials, examples
  • comprehensiveness: breadth and depth (go back to grant and find out the breadth and depth of the IDI).
  • try it yourself / demo: physical, virtual, book it?
• people: collaborations, partnerships
• topics
• define inclusive design, examples (who does it?)
• free and open research
• who are the end users?
  • What does the end user get from the IDI (scope)? (i.e. Is the IDI about making ATs better?)
• What is the infrastructure provided?
  • is this freely available to anyone? They need to be in touch / legitimacy in order to get access.
• community engagement: which communities?
• Training
  • for HQP.

What do we want to communicate to each user?

• non-institutional member
  • inform about IDI, inclusive design
  • deliver content: policy and pedigogy.
  • understanding of the projects so they can decide on how to participate.

• IDI member
  • how to use the IDI infrastructure: tools for collaboration and research
  • an outlet for information dissemination

• IDRC

Questions:

• does the grant say anything about what the site says?
• are we missing anything?