Support Services

Isa Van de Velde (RBINS) & Dimitrios Koureas (NHM)

Within ViBRANT, Scratchpads are a data-publishing framework for people to create their own thematic virtual research communities supporting biodiversity science. The Scratchpad platform provides at present the following support systems for users:

• the help desk dealing with all emails, issues tracker, calls and meetings relating to user support

• a help system with help pages integrated into the individual Scratchpads

• the sandbox and home-training sites for self-training

• training courses with training manuals (manuals available online)

• a blog to inform the community of new features, fixed bugs, training courses etc.

Support systems are vital in maintaining user engagement in the early stages of use and they play an important role for the communication between users and developers of software. In a recent paper, "Who learns from whom? Supporting users and developers of a major biodiversity e-infrastructure"), two Scratchpad support systems, the issues tracker and the email service, were studied in detail. The aim was to identify co-learning opportunities between users and developers of the Scratchpad system by asking which support system was used by whom and for what type of questions. The results show that the issues tracker and e-mails cater to different user mentalities as well as different kind of questions and suggest ways to improve the support system as part of the Scratchpad development.

Source: 5849
	Pattern of email requests over time. Number of email requests per month divided into request category and each category divided into emails sent by users versus developers (October 2010-June 2011).
	Pattern of issues over time. Number of issues per month divided into request category and each category divided into issues posted by users versus developers (October 2010-June 2011).
	Request processing time for email requests. Time lapse between posting of an email and the first reply to this email divided into request category and each category divided into emails sent by users versus developers (October 2010-June 2011).
	Request processing time for issues. Time lapse between posting of issues and the first reply to this issue divided into request category and each category divided into issues posted by users versus developers (October 2010-June 2011).

Getting to know the specific training needs of the Scratchpad users and of potential users is important. Within the framework of the VU user studies a user survey was set up to get a better view of user needs and to influence the further development of Scratchpads 2.0 as well as implementation priorities. The survey covers the following issues: Scratchpad community characteristics, system improvements, training courses, and technical support services. The focal maintainers (±350) of all Scratchpad sites were asked to fill in the online survey. At the time of writing (Nov 11), 53 surveys were fully completed. Most of the responses received are very positive with valuable suggestions and comments on the support systems and for Scratchpads software development. An evaluation of the results of the user survey is planned for November 2012.

Evaluation of delivered training is essential if maximum impact is to be achieved. Hence, all course attendees are asked to complete an online feedback form (which can be done anonymously if desired). Most of the responses received are very positive and a detailed evaluation will be given in a forthcoming report (M3.14 ‘Assessment of user support services and promotional activities’). The feedback given by the participants after training influences the delivery and content of training as well as the future design of the Scratchpad software.