Define Project Values
A useful next step is to articulate the values that underlie your project. Have the group define these ideals and principles in statements or simply in single words. While helping focus the basic philosophy of the project and its partners, these values offer a natural transition toward creating a project vision statement. The value statements or words are also useful in later marketing efforts.
Using brainstorming techniques, gather unedited input from the group members to capture the values. The group may then work together to combine any statements or words that refer to the same concepts. The group should also roughly define each term used, to be edited and reviewed at a later time.
When the Orange Grove strategic planning group began thinking about the project’s values, they thought of value words that should apply to the repository. During brainstorming, they used three words often—“trust,” “quality,” and “reusability.” After all the suggested words were listed, the group members voted on which words they thought were the most appropriate values for the repository.
After much discussion, study, and research, the Orange Grove initially settled on the following values:
- Quality – Content is accurate, grammatically correct, and conformant to technical and metadata standards. Lessons are instructionally sound, support measurable learning outcomes, and are based on Southern Regional Education Board and Learning Object Review Instrument (Principles of Effective Learning Objects, March, 2005), with ongoing evaluation of effectiveness
- Trust – The repository provides accurate, persistent, and reliable content and systems.
- Productivity – Whenever possible, the repository community makes effective use of existing digital resources to increase productivity, cost efficiency, and reduce development time.
- Sharing – The repository community contributes to the resource collection and uses or re-purposes resources created by others.
- Partnerships – The repository community supports collaboration and federation with other repositories, resource collections, and publishers.
- Continuous improvement – The repository improves through systemic evaluation and application of its findings
