The CC-PLUS Advisory Board met on November 5th. Ten institutions representing consortia and individual libraries participated in the Phase 1 pilot. The goal of this first pilot was to put the software into practice and identify any bugs; it was not meant to be a production-level pilot. One member pursued gathering data from 130 providers, and this was a good test of the system and process. Only around 36 of these providers had COUNTER endpoints, some of which were not R5, and it was further evidence that tracking down valid credentials is time consuming and will continue to be a major hurdle to working with any usage statistics gathering systems. Over the past month, the team went through the pilot feedback and compiled the key issues.
The requested grant extension was accepted, and the new end period is June 2021. This allows time for additional prioritized development and improvements as well as a Phase 2 pilot in Spring 2021. A small group of active participants who will meet weekly would be ideal for this second pilot, as the goal is to put the system into regular operation. CC-PLUS has applied for a third round of IMLS National Leadership Grant funding for this project, led by SCELC. If invited to submit a full proposal, there will be a March 31st deadline.
The webinar for ICOLC to be held on Friday, November 20th, 11am EDT currently has 42 registrants. It will include an overview of the project, demo, and discussion about what will come next for the project. Registration is available here: https://vivalib.libcal.com/calendar/events/ccplus2020.
The Board reviewed a stakeholder mapping with an eye toward being inclusive in the development of this software, building community, and ensuring its long-term sustainability.