Over the years, I have had the opportunity to work on digital infrastructure development projects with a variety of web-based research outputs. My roles and responsibilities on these projects are detailed below.
ArtmobCMS Arts Content Management System
ArtmobCMS is a suite of Drupal modules that deliver sophisticated rights holder description and licensing management functionality for digital archives. It was developed in the Centre for Digital Policy and Cultural Rights Initiatives within the New Media Collaboration Centre at York University. The Principal Investigators for the project were Rosemary J. Coombe (Canada Research Chair in Law, Communication and Culture, York University), Christopher Innes (Canada Research Chair in Performance and Culture, Distinguished Research Professor, York University), and Darren Wershler (Concordia University). During the course of research infrastructure development, numerous pilot archives were launched, including a bpNichol archive, Canadian Writers in Person, a Fred Wah archive, the ModernDrama.ca multimedia archive expansion, the Scream Literary Festival archive, and the Banyan archive.
Senior Research Assistant, Project Manager 2007 – 2015
My role on the project evolved over the course of my involvement with it.
- Worked with the Technical Lead to establish software development priorities and timelines;
- Collaborated with Principal Investigators and project team members to regularly review progress and identify strategies for improvement and development;
- Reviewed Canada’s Copyright Act and Dublin Core metadata standard to identify points of correspondence for streamlined resource and contributor description input;
- Conducted requirements gathering and prepared functional specifications documentation for RFP;
- Worked with university procurement to initiate and successfully complete RFP process for software development in accordance with institutional guidelines;
- Managed annual reporting for two major awards (CFI Leaders Opportunity Fund; Ontario Research Fund);
- Cowrote successful external grant applications (CMRC Canadian Media Research Consortium; CIRA Community Investment Program);
- Managed the digital media and digitization lab;
- Managed the transfer of digital assets from external partners to project servers on the university network in accordance with IT-approved protocols;
- Coordinated dedicated server installation, maintenance and security with IT personnel;
- Liaised with pilot archive partners to coordinate digitization and ingestion of assets into the system;
- Interviewed, hired, and managed undergraduate research assistants through an internal funding program;
- Trained junior research assistants to digitize, upload, and manage digital assets for pilot archives;
- Conducted independent research on cognate topics;
- Presented research at international conferences;
- Authored publications related to project research questions; and
- Prepared talks, posters, and presentations for various groups of scholars.
ModernDrama.ca
ModernDrama.ca was an online resource developed by Christopher Innes, Canada Research Chair in Performance & Culture at York University in collaboration with international research partners. The site incorporated a number of digital resources, including Modern Theatre in Context: A Multimedia Chronology of Modern Drama, a multimedia archive of street theatre and the carnival arts, VR reconstructions of historical theatre performances, and a hyper-linked glossary of theatre terms.
Project Manager and User Interface Developer 2001 – 2015
My initial responsibilities were designing and managing development of the chronology resource and liaising with external partners to integrate digital assets. As the project matured, the focus shifted to adding new features to the chronology, adding new resources to accompany the chronology, and back-end updates to the web applications.
- Gathered requirements and specifications for the project;
- Conducted an iterative design process in coordination with multiple stakeholders;
- Converted plain text chronology entries into a structured data model for an expanded multimedia resource;
- Developed custom content management system to support ongoing updates to the multimedia chronology resource by a team of editors;
- Developed and integrated numerous additional embedded resources, including headlines, expanded news entries, key play information, and supplementary bio and topic entries;
- Trained research assistants on the use of the content management system, editing video, exporting edited video clips to various streaming video formats, and uploading to the video streaming server;
- Oversaw the conversion of a static directory listing of multimedia resources into a Drupal-based multimedia archive;
- Converted a text-based glossary of theatre terms into a hyperlinked online glossary with back-end glossary entries editing tool;
- Supported the principal investigator in the acquisition and implementation of dedicated servers for staging, production, video streaming, and back up;
- Liaised with university information technology personnel to coordinate installation of server resources, domains, back up routines, and server maintenance; and
- Prepared a front-end and back-end update strategy to extend the lifespan of the project.