ArchivesCanada upgrade

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=Project Background=

ARCHIVESCANADA.ca is the national gateway to archival resources found in over 800 repositories across Canada. ARCHIVESCANADA.ca is maintained by the Canadian Council of Archives (CCA) using the technical assistance and database provided by Library Archives Canada (LAC). In 2012 an upgraded ARCHIVESCANADA.CA site will be launched using ICA-AtoM 1.3 and Artefactual Systems hosting services.

MemoryBC and after
Beginning in 2007, the CCA and LAC began exploring requirements and options for a second generation technical platform to run ARCHIVESCANADA.ca. In 2009, the Archives Association of British Columbia migrated its BCAUL portal to ICA-AtoM and rebranded it as MemoryBC.ca. Other provincial associations have since migrated their portals to ICA-AtoM including Ontario (http://archeion.ca), Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

Artefactual Systems
ICA-AtoM software development is led by Vancouver-based Artefactual Systems on behalf of the International Council on Archives and a growing community of international implementers (est. 150-200). There are no license fees to install and customize the AGPLv3 licensed software. Artefactual believes strongly in sharing practical techniques and the responsibilities/benefits of ongoing maintenance and development of a common technical platform (see for example AABC Data Migration Toolkit).

ICA-AtoM for ArchivesCanada.ca
Over the past few years, LAC and CCA continued to collaborate and fund ICA-AtoM feasibility projects with the intention to evalute ICA-AtoM's suitability for use in a multi-level, RAD-compliant, highly-scalable new ARCHIVESCANADA.ca database release. An independent technical audit commissioned by the National Archives of France (2011) concluded that ICA-AtoM is a "high-quality" archival web application that is suitable for the small to medium-sized deployments for which it was originally designed (i.e., 100,000 records, 10 concurrent users).

In early 2011, LAC contracted Artefactual Systems to perform scalability testing on ICA-AtoM using data from the LAC catalogue (see LAC ICA-AtoM Scalability Testing project). As expected, this project revealed performance limitations in the ICA-AtoM v1.1 search index and data model abstraction layer when managing millions of records. Additional analysis provided Artefactual Systems with a roadmap for upgrades to be implemented over iterative ICA-AtoM releases, the first of which (optimizing the data model abstraction layer) was addressed in the ICA-AtoM v1.2 release in November 2011. The ArchivesCanada upgrade project is funding the next phase of scalability upgrades incl. ElasticSearchPlugin and a new 'Dominion' theme in release 2.0. The primary goal is to do big data, big index discovery layer search and browse for the Canadian national portal of archival descriptions, including faceted search results and a mobile interface.

=Project Planning=

As we work towards the May 2012 launch, this wiki page will be used to document and discuss the development of:
 * new graphic design, site architecture and user interface for ARCHIVESCANADA.ca
 * ICA-AtoM 1.3 search interfaces
 * re-factoring ICA-AtoM's search engine integration
 * administrator import feature and interface
 * MARC import
 * mobile friendly CSS

Background to Search
Preliminary discussions about Searching revealed the need to clarify different approaches and their functionality.
 * Advanced Search
 * ''Offers the user the ability to narrow their searches by a series of filters. The user can select certain fields for searching, such as Creator, Date, or Place.
 * Example: Saskatchewan Archival Information Network.
 * Example: Trove - The National Library of Australia
 * Faceted Search
 * Offers the user the ability to navigate a multi-dimensional information space by combining text search with a progressive narrowing of choices in each dimension. Check boxes and links enable users to drill into search results. Each facet displayed will show the number of hits within the search that match that category.The advantage of faceted searching is that it enables users to become familiar with the scope and nature of the content available.In doing so, the user becomes aware of the taxonomies associated with the data.
 * Example:Smithsonian Institution Collections Search Center
 * Further Reading: Smithsonian Institution Research Information System, Tech Article
 * Marti A. Hearst,UIs for Faceted Navigation. Recent Advances and Remaining Problems
 * Dolphin, the file browser in KDE (a linux desktop) introduced a faceted search, Dophin Screenshot
 * Portal Search
 * ''Offers the user a website that features a suite of services. A portal presents information from diverse sources in a unified way. Portal services often include a search engine or directory, databases, maps, forums etc... A large enterprise can use a portal to provide a consistent look and feel while providing the user with access to multiple applications and databases, which would usually be discrete entities.
 * Example: Europeana Portal

2011 Discussion: User Interface Search & Early Mockups
These early mockups address user interface controls and layout. Graphic design will be addressed in a separate process.

Development Comments:
 * Data sources/ quality
 * Being able to offer browse and faceted results is only possible if the source data has been indexed with subjects, place, names, format types, etc. The other issue is the limited availability of item-level descriptions and providing an interface that blends fonds/collection level descriptions (incl. hierarchy display) smoothly with item-level descriptions.

Relevant Literature:
 * See, D-Lib Magazine's recent feature article on Developing Mobile Access to Digital Collections, written by Carmen Mitchell and Daniel Suchy.

2012 Search and Browse Wireframes
January 2012

After a series of meetings and discussions, the first round of Search and Browse Wireframes have been created by the UX Architect for ARCHIVESCANADA to review. Building on the new Trillium theme, released with ICA-AtoM 1.2, these wireframes act as a visual guide to represent the content, functionality and navigation proposed for the ARCHIVESCANADA upgrade:
 * [[File:ArchivesCanada Search and Browse Wireframes-1.pdf]]

Feedback from CCA is integrated into final Search and Browse Wireframes:
 * [[File:ArchivesCanada Search and Browse Wireframes-2.pdf]]

UI Design of Browse and Search templates:
 * [[Media:ArchivesCanada_UIDesign_BrowseSearch.pdf|ArchivesCanada_UIDesign_BrowseSearch]]

Feedback from CCA prompts a new Homepage design that provides site visitors with immediate access to searching the holdings and convenient links to ARCHIVESCANADA virtual exhibits, contact information etc. Homepage design is shown below with five different background images. CCA feedback is required to select one background image.


 * [[Media:ArchivesCanada-Homepage-option01.png|ArchivesCanada Homepage Option 01]]
 * [[Media:ArchivesCanada-Homepage-option02.png|ArchivesCanada Homepage Option 02]]
 * [[Media:ArchivesCanada-Homepage-option03.png|ArchivesCanada Homepage Option 03]]
 * [[Media:ArchivesCanada-Homepage-option04.png|ArchivesCanada Homepage Option 04]]
 * [[Media:ArchivesCanada-Homepage-option05.png|ArchivesCanada Homepage Option 05]]

The final background image will be high-resolution and will not include a watermark. The design work for the icons for the different entity types (institutions, topics & subjects, people & organizations, etc) will be completed in early February.

February 2012

Begin development of ICA-AtoM 1.3 Search and Browse templates according to final UI design.

Set2 Wireframes represent the content, functionality and navigation proposed for the ARCHIVESCANADA upgrade specific to: Advanced Search, Admin Import, Digital Object upload and Browse Archival Descriptions Treeview. This document is posted for CCA review.


 * [[File:ArchivesCanada Wireframes_Set2.pdf]]

Feedback from CCA implemented into Import process - resulting in a clarification of draft status and the addition of a Publish All option within the Import approval process. See revised set of wireframes:


 * [[File:ArchivesCanada Wireframes_Set2.2.pdf]]

Feedback from CCA selected the image from Homepage Option 02. A set of ICONS were designed to aid in User navigation and improve quick browse capabilities. The new homepage design is shown below and incorporates the Archives Canada new "look and feel":


 * [[Media:Homepage_Icons.png|ArchivesCanada Homepage w/Icons]]

UI Wireframes for Mobile-friendly access to ArchivesCanada site:


 * [[File:ArchivesCanada Wireframes-Mobile.pdf]]

March 2012

New Icon design for CCA review:
 * [[Media:Icons-finalset.png|Icons]]