The Products page has the heading "Portal Products." Is this accurate? Are these actually products of the Research Software Portal?
First, I find it a bit off-putting for the RSP to claim responsibility/ownership. It's hosting the content, but the people who work on the content for each area don't think of themselves as part of the RSP team, do they? (I don't. I expect operations people, software developers, and UREP members don't, either.) Claiming credit for what's put here might discourage people from contributing.
Second, it seems odd to claim that Software Discovery and XSEDE Source Repositories are RSP products when clicking these links takes one away from RSP.
What I'm reacting to is the word "Products." I wonder if there's a better word for this that doesn't imply responsibility/ownership?
What about "Topics" or "Subjects?" Is the RSP similar to a curated news service (think Apple News or Flipboard) that curates information but doesn't necessarily generate it all itself? It seems to me kind of like a structured Wiki, allowing semi-independent editors/curators to add content within a structure provided by the site. In that case, topics or subjects might make more sense than products?
Hey Lee,
I understand the misgivings about the term Portal Products. We didn't intend to imply responsibility/ownership. We could instead call them Portal Features or Portal Capabilities. What should we label the section that lists "the things people can do thru the portal"? Portal Topics and Portal Subjects don't strike a chord with me. Maybe Portal Areas?
I agree that we need to use terminology that emphasizes that critical role the community plays in contributing to the portal's content. There are two ways the community contributes, directly (use case registry, priority assessments, delivery plans, technical reviews, ratings, discussion forums, and software/service registration) or thru the external software repositories that we aggregate and index to enable discovery. Please feel free to suggest specific content changes that emphasize this community contribution aspect.
Thanks
Hi Lee,
We changed "Portal Products" to "Portal Tools" for now. Thanks for your feedback.
Kate