BEST PRACTICES

Strategies for Success

• Identify key collaborators and advisors for guidance throughout the project.
  
  
• Establish a 'shared vision' of all participants and encourage innovative thinking when developing project purposes, goals, and activities.
  
  
• Determine meaningful goals and activities by canvassing the target audience regularly.
  
  
• Sustain user-centered goals and activities driven by target audience needs throughout the project.
  
  
• Maintain consistent, efficient, and effective communication between participants.
  
  
• Maintain flexibility to meet unexpected challenges [i.e., technology].
  
  
• Sustain project activities after the end of the project funding period.

Lessons Learned

The success of the project was measured not only in the implementation of digital art resources into cross-disciplinary K-Lifelong learning curriculum, but also by the lessons we learned along the way. Below are some important aspects we uncovered for planning, implementing, and achieving success during this project.

The Target Audience

• Focus Groups helped us identify our target audience and also served as advisors throughout the life of the project.
  
  
• Canvassing our target audience continuously ensured that user needs steered project goals.
  
  
• Resources and activities needed to be meaningful and easily accessible to the teachers, librarians, and students and reflect the needs of the classroom.
  
  
• Education professionals required a high degree of professional development through workshops to learn how to select, access, and integrate digital resources into their curriculum as well as to build collaborations with librarians and other cultural organization professionals.
  
  
• Project goals and resources needed to be flexible in order to accommodate unexpected user needs and technology issues.
  
  
• Ongoing communication through meetings, workshops, and listserv's among the project participants, directors, focus groups, and advisory boards helped keep the activities user-centered.

  The Vendors

• Contracts were negotiated so that site licenses, terms, and fee structures were reasonable and reflected out target audiences' abilities and needs both during and after the project.
  
  
• The usage terms with vendors needed to be flexible to include theses resources in the varying instructional activities and technical capabilities of our audiences.
  
  
• Vendors were extremely favorable to setting responsible service level agreements and fee structures for the K-Lifelong learning audiences.

  Technology Needs

• Commercial resources were best accessed through a central modem pool (at the IUPUI University Library) using authentication methods.
  
  
• Network security of participating schools and libraries varied and created difficulty for access to project resources. Collecting participant IP addresses at the highest level (firewall or IP router) and having the contact information for the IT support person at the school or library was our most effective strategy for avoiding security barriers.
  
  
• Appropriate communication mechanisms needed to be in place to respond quickly to the technical needs of participants.
  
  
• Project managers must be knowledgeable about technology infrastructure issues and creatively respond to technical capabilities of schools and libraries.
  
  
• Sharing equipment and resources allowed for broad participation among all project participants.
  
  
• Listserv groups served a vital role in keeping teachers, librarians, and project managers in communication.

  Intellectual Popery and Copyright

  The project manager must:

• Be aware of copyright and intellectual property issues and know proper channels to consult as needed concerning access and delivery of digital content.
  
  
• Educate participants as to the terms of use of the commercial products available.
  

  Significant Intellectual Property and Copyright resources that were utilized or developed included:

• The IUPUI Copyright Management Center
• Indianapolis Museum of Art, Department of the Registrar
• Johnson County Public Library
• The Artists' Rights Society
• Instructional Units License
• Photography Release Form
• Term and Use guidelines