Interested in beginning a digital scholarship project? This checklist/questionnaire is useful to facilitate effective planning.
Describe the Project
- Name and brief description of the project
- Who are the project sponsors/partners?
- Does the project have funding?
- If yes, what are the funding sources and for how long? Do you need funding?
- What is the anticipated timeframe for the project?
- Can you provide examples of existing projects that might be used as a model in terms of content, design, or both?
Project Goals
- What are the research and/or teaching goals of the project?
- Who are the audiences for this project?
- What impact do you want your project to have?
- How does this project contribute to or complement existing projects?
- How does the project further diversity and inclusion and/or include marginalized voices?
- How will the success of the project be measured or identified?
Activities
Infrastructure
- What is the proposed software for this project?
- What is the proposed hardware for this project?
- What is the underlying infrastructure for this project? (i.e. WordPress, Drupal, etc.)
- What is the proposed repository or data storage for project objects?
- Where will the project be hosted, if applicable?
- How will you test for usability and accessibility?
Content
- What is the content of the resource?
- Who is creating the content or in the case of primary sources, from where is it being drawn?
- When and how often will new content be added?
- What metadata needs to be captured, and what is the preferred metadata schema?
- Will project data be reusable by others?
Access and Discovery
- How long will the project be available online?
- How will users find the resource?
- How will the resource be promoted?
- How will the project be preserved or archived?
- What kind of copyright or licensing will be used for the project?
- Do any rights need to be negotiated before moving forward with the project?
Project Staff and Management
- Who will be the project manager and/or lead?
- Who will be the project staff?
- Identify roles and activities of all staff.
- What is the timeframe for the staff to work on the resource?
- What other departments or external partners will be part of the project?
- Will students be employed for the project?
- Are you looking for staffing support from the libraries to complete the project?
- How do you plan to acknowledge the labor of those involved in the project?
Funding
- What is your budget overview?
- How will activities for this project be paid for?
- How long will the project and activities be funded for short-term and long-term?
- What alternatives are there once the funding ends?
- What might be provided by your institution?
- What might come from a grant agency or partner?
Assessment and Outreach
- How will you assess the quality and impact of the project? At which stages?
- What is your outreach plan to engaged your targeted audience?
This checklist content has been modified from a Project Proposal Template at the Boston College Digital Scholarship Group with ideas from a Digital Project Proposal Brief at Columbia University Libraries.
