[Yulcat-l] Status of the beta RDA Toolkit

[Bourassa, Dominique]

Dear colleagues,

For those of you interested in the development of RDA, the following "Statement on 3R Project Completion" has been released. Don't hesitate to let me know if you have any questions.

Dominique


Statement on 3R Project Completion
Current Status
With the April and September releases to the RDA Toolkit beta site, the RDA text has been stabilized and the site has met project goals for accessibility and revision reporting. This wraps up 3R work of the English language version of the standard and the site. The focus of work has shifted to translation and the development of policy statements and application profiles. Translations are well under way with expectations that nine translations will be published in the next 15 months. Policy statements and application profiles are in an early stage of development.
In the past public statements from ALA Publishing and the RDA Board laid out exactly how the 3R Project would come to completion. It was stated that when all the translations of the beta Toolkit are published (or very near publication) and the majority of the policy statement sets (5 of 8) are also published, then project would be deemed complete. With agreement from the RDA Board and the RSC, the Switchover of the beta site to official status would begin. The Switchover would include moving the original RDA Toolkit to secondary status with a one-year Countdown Clock, which would count the days until that site would be removed from the Web.
This plan has never included a firm date for when these completion goals would be met, though rough estimates (really just guesses) have been offered publicly.

A New Plan
Recent discussions between the RDA Board, the RSC and the publishers of RDA Toolkit has led to a decision to make a significant change to the 3R completion plan. Here are the key components of the new plan.

  *   A hard date for the Switchover of the Beta Site to official RDA status has been set at December 15, 2020.
  *   The Countdown Clock on the original RDA Toolkit will not begin with the Switchover.
  *   The start of the Countdown Clock will be determined by full agreement of the RDA Board and RSC.
There are two major issues driving this change. First, through frank discussions with some of those writing policy statements (PS), it has become clear that these documents will require a couple rounds of evaluation and writing and review. It is very difficult to determine how long this process will take. Secondly, the public have not been allowed to submit formal proposals to the standard for the 2.5 years. It is important to the development of the standard that normal avenues of input on the standard and implemented and functioning.
The RDA Board, the RSC, and the publishers of RDA Toolkit support this new plan and believe it allows for the restoration of normal operations for the standard while still allowing for institutions to pace their transition over to the LRM-based RDA with the aid of policy statements. Expectations are that many translations if not all the translations of the beta site will be completed before the Switchover.

What Happens Next

  *   Releases to the beta RDA Toolkit will continue. Each release will include Release Notes, though no major changes to the text are expected prior to the Switchover.
  *   Translations will be added as soon as they are ready for publication.
  *   The Switchover will take place on December 15, 2020, meaning that beta.rdatoolkit.org will become access.rdatoolkit.org, and the original RDA Toolkit will move to original.rdatoolkit.org.
  *   The Countdown Clock will start at a later date to be determined by full agreement of the RDA Board, the RSC and the Publishers of RDA Toolkit. The clock will countdown for one year.


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