Document Status: Initial Draft of User Requirements

Background

This set of requirements derives from the usage scenarios supplied by the participants in the 1-3 March 2006 kickoff meeting in Ann Arbor, Michigan (download usage scenarios).

Assumptions & Definitions

Each institution wishing to use Sakaibrary can set Sakai to work with their own metasearch tool (e.g., MetaLib, SIRSI SingleSearch). A metasearch tool allows searching across multiple databases.
A canned search (in this document) is a search where the search terms and other constraints are pre-specified.
A constrained search (in this document) is a search where some search terms and other constraints (such as which databases or groups of databases to seach) are in place, but the user can specify one or more search terms.

Requirements

Requirements are divided into the following categories.

User Requirements - things users would like to be able to do, subdivided by user category (e.g., student, instructor, librarian)
Functional Requirements - should flow from and reference user requirements; things the software system needs to be able to do
Technical Requirements - requirements about how things need to be implemented; these should support user requirements, but they sometimes derive from other sources, such as the Sakai community's decision to use a particular technology

Values for the Priority column are high, medium, low, and outplan. High priority items must be achieved for the project to be successful. Ideally, there is time to accomplish all high priority items as well as a make-sense assortment of medium and low priority items. Outplan requirements are those which we decide we will not attempt to address.

The Status column can indicate what Sakai release a requirement will be met.

User Requirements

Note: Where user categories are not specifically identified (i.e., where this says "users can..." instead of "instructors can..." or "librarians can..."), the implication is that the task is broadly useful to most or all categories of user.

Code	Description	Priority
U1	Users can create citation lists consisting of references to and links (if available) to materials from licensed databases, the public web, materials uploaded within Sakai, or links to canned or constrained searches.	high
U2	Users can embed citation lists within other document types in Sakai, whether structured (e.g., a template-based syllabus or assignment), unstructured (e.g., a discussion posting, an announcement), or a research guide.	high
U3	Within Sakai and from a single search box, users can search across licensed databases or other relevant resources to locate and add citations to a citation list.	high
U4	In addition to a simple search, users can specify fielded search terms and other constraints for a search, including which databases, journals, or other resource collections or resource types are searched.	high
U5	Users can name, annotate, and save predefined (canned or constrained) searches for future modification and use by themselves or others, or for inclusion into research guides and other document types.	high
U6	Users can save citations as standalone objects (e.g., resources) within Sakai to facilitate use and reuse in a variety of contexts.	high
U7	Users can edit and repurpose citation lists.	high
U8	Users can add custom citations to a citation list.	medium
U9	Users can import from/export to other citation management tools such as Endnote or Refworks.	medium
U10	Users can test a citation list and receive a report of broken links.	medium
U11	Librarians can create research guides as a distinct document type within Sakai, associating the guides with relevant classes according to the local policy, access control, and workflow.	high
U12	Librarians can put such objects as citation lists, canned or constrained searches, and unstructured document content (text, pictures, etc.) into research guides.	high
U13	Librarians can communicate with instructors and students with the Sakai context visible (e.g., the librarian can tell what course the student "coming from", even if the student doesn't mention it).	medium

Functional Requirements

Code	Description	Priority	Status

Technical Requirements

Code	Description	Priority	Status

Issues

This section is for requirements issues still to be decided.

Is built-in support for version control and local modifications (i.e., branching) needed? If not, do we need to provide a way to compare citation lists to identify differences? (Preliminary decision: do not provide version control or sophisticated branching, merging, and diff-ing.)
Unlike the Open Source Portfolio (OSP) Sakai doesn't seem to have the notion of templates and forms, which would be useful ways to incorporate citations and citation lists into structured documents such as syllabi and research guides. Do we need to float some requirements to the rest of Sakai to support this kind of thing?
What support does/will Sakai provide for "learning objects" and how are they included in the citation list?
Do we need context-sensitive presentation of citations? What contexts are relevant?
Is a canned or constrained search a citation? Or is it a different kind of object? Even though it may be able to be represented as a URL, it also needs to be turned back into a set of editable search terms in an advanced search form.
What should the relationship be between citations and resources? Between folders of resources and citation lists? Conceptually they are similar enough to be confusing to users. Currently in Sakai, a resource is a document with a very limited amount of metadata. Do we want to make a citation just another document type? Or do we want to generalize the resource model to include citations (without, of course, requiring extra metadata to be added). One justification for the latter approach is that objects such as canned or constrained search are more naturally conceived of as resources than as "citations". Also, we already know we want documents uploaded to resources to be listable within a citation list.

Contrib: Sakaibrary

Sakaibrary Requirements