Directory Self Assessment Tool
A. Data assessment
- What are the NOS directories on campus? How are they used? Where do they
derive official data from? For what information are they the system of record?
- What are the central directories? How are they used? Which systems do they
feed? How is the information maintained?
- What's the commonality of syntax and semantics among existing distributed
and duplicated data?
- For each of the major institutional data elements, who can view? Who can
change? Distinguish between affiliated and non-affiliated
B. Applications Assessment
- What applications are currently directory enabled?
- What upcoming applications can use directories?
- What are the high win, easier to do apps? (Email, white pages)
C. Constraint assessment
- How much intercampus interoperability is needed?
- What is the expertise of the staff?
- What are the legacy systems and how will they interact with the directory?
- Where will leadership and funding come from?
D. Political assessment
- Where will leadership come from? Where will capital come from? Who will
operate?
- Who will manage the change process?
- How is university counsel involved?
- Is there a culture to permit effective delegation of data management? Are
there clear default policies for managing people and resources? Is the culture
of the institution top-down or bottom-up?
E. Design Issues
- Designing for data management vs designing for robustness and performance
- Peculiarities of name space in higher ed How to organize people? How to
organize resources? How to reflect group policy options?
- What are the schema issues? How will multiple communities of interest be
addressed?
- Use of metadirectories
- The Database behind the Directory
- Getting the apps to work