Migration Stories

Our Partners Share How Their Migrations are Going as of May 2019

Over the course of the Bridge2Hyku grant, project partners (University of Houston, University of Miami, Indiana University - Purdue University - Indianapolis, and University of Victoria) have been working on developing migration paths and launching new digital repositories. The B2H Partners have done a lot with their digital repository migrations since the B2H project started way back in the Fall of 2017. We recently sent out questionnaires to get an idea of the Partners’ progress as of May 2019.

If you’re just starting on your migration path, it’s important to understand where others have tread before you and what lessons they have learned. These responses from each Partner provide insight into the process. Each Partner’s response to the most important question asked in the questionnaire is below (with links to the Partner’s longer Q&A responses).

What advice would you share with those currently considering or beginning a migration?

No repository platform is perfect, and it is important to take into consideration how the platform will work for your institution, collections, and users.
UMiami (Full Q&A Here)

Try to avoid the pressure of jumping too far ahead of the community in the name of getting an application or project to production
IUPUI (Full Q&A Here)

Having a small cross functional group (people from IT, metadata, digitization, etc.) focused on the migration. Setting up good communication channels that are used often with the migration team and stakeholders can avoid a lot of confusion and missing details during your migration process. Follow the communities using your new platform and try to be active when possible. This can go a long way when needing support and future planning.
UH’s Lead Developer (Full Q&A Here)

A migration is not just about systems, it also affects lots of people. The advice I would give related to this is that it’s important to engage stakeholders in various ways throughout the process. Some stakeholders may just need to be kept in the loop about the general trajectory of work. Others more directly impacted by the work, should be part of the migration team(s) so that different perspectives can inform priorities and decisions.
UH’s Metadata Strategist (Full Q&A Here)