The TAPAS development group met at Brown University for a two day face-to-face meeting to review progress on the site, create a list of final development tasks, and plan for the lead-up to launch. The following institutions were represented at the meeting: Brown University, Hamilton College, Northeastern University, the University of Virginia, Providence College, and Wheaton College.
During the meeting, the development team determined that much of the site is in good shape and planned out the remaining work to be done on improving the site’s performance, creating documentation and user help, clarifying workflows, and creating a better reading interface.
One major outcome of the meeting was a timeline for the launch process. We are currently planning a two-stage launch: a soft launch with access by invitation, and a formal public launch at which the project will be available for general use by TEI members. The soft launch is currently planned for some time in March 2014, and the formal public launch is currently planned for summer 2014. We will have more information available about the soft launch and will be seeking contributors in the new year.
As part of the lead-up to the formal launch we will be conducting a further round of beta-testing to review new interface features and improvements that have been introduced based on the last round of testing. This testing process will be conducted in the same manner as the previous round: we will be inviting members of the TEI community to sign up as beta-testers, and will provide a set of structured tasks with accompanying questions to guide the testing process. Responses and discussion will take place in a discussion forum so that we can ask followup questions about specific issues. If you are interesting in participating in this beta testing phase, please sign up if you have not already.