Here we go!

On Monday (the official start date of OPW) we had a huge brainstorming session for OpenMRS Documentation with my mentors, a few developers and a veteran documentor. The major ideas we tossed back and forth were:

• Information Architecture: an IA is an interesting blend of design and organization which creates groupings for data. It some ways it can be conceptualized as an information tree continually branching as things are grouped more and more precisely. It’s intended to be a concise and intuitive way for people to navigate huge amounts of information- like OpenMRS documentation. At the start of our IA, we divided documentation into two major groups: developers and implementors. Of course the division isn’t always clear-cut, but we’re mainly going to focus on developer documentation, and in such a way that the implementor documentation will be a logical followup. This leads me to the next major point which is:

• Sustainability: one of the most important goals for the summer is not necessarily to create as much output as possible, but to create structure and form that can be continuously used by the OpenMRS community as the project grows and evolves. In the past, documentation projects have been abandoned or forgotten as soon as they ended. We hope that the three month OPW period will be long enough to create a sustainable documentation structure that anyone in the community can continue to use, update and enhance. We’re especially interested in making sure that there’s a place for new documentors who want to become involved in the OpenMRS community. One of the ways we’re going to generate sustainability is by making the role of:

• Documentation Lead: because documentation in OpenMRS has been disorganized and a little unstructured, we’re going to create and define a new role- someone who can really be in charge of documentation. I’m going to be filling these big shoes during OPW, and making sure that the position is one that can be easily continued. This way, documentation can have a face; someone who can help the community create, use, question, update and participate in documentation.

Of course, a lot of fantastic ideas and thoughts came out of the session, but for now these are the most relevant. I’m definitely excited (and a little nervous) to have such a huge part in the process of revamping OpenMRS documentation. Let the adventure begin!