AGUA Development Phase 5: Mid-Phase Report

Every other year WEST solicits unarchived holdings files from members and performs a collections analysis to identify what journals will be archived on behalf of the group over the next two years. During the ‘off years’ the WEST project team works with the AGUA Development team at the California Digital Library to identify and build enhancements to AGUA that improve the collection analysis, add new functionalities in AGUA, and generally help facilitate member engagement with the analysis and archiving processes. 

After soliciting feedback and suggestions on ways to enhance and extend AGUA functionalities from the WEST project and technical teams and WEST membership, the WEST Operations and Collections Council identified a list of projects to prioritize for development during the current development phase (Phase 5), which the WEST Executive Committee affirmed in the fall of 2020. In late January 2021, the AGUA technical team began development work for Phase 5 building out the new and enhanced functionalities. All development work is expected to be completed in September 2021. 

The Phase 5 development list is an ambitious one, and represents a mix of enhancements to foundational services and more aspirational work building out new, innovative services. Of the 10 projects prioritized for development, seven were estimated to be “extra large” projects, requiring more than four weeks to complete. As of writing, five of the projects are completed, two are in progress, and one has been de-prioritized for development (based on findings from one of the projects developed early in the phase); two projects are still pending. The AGUA technical team is on track to complete all prioritized development projects before the end of the development period; any remaining time will be used to develop other projects that were not initially prioritized by the OCC and WEST Exec.

The full mid-phase report on the progress of the development projects is now available for member review: AGUA Development Phase 5: Mid-phase Report