The Pace of ConservationSpace Improvements

Since the last blog entry was posted, here on conservationspace.org , progress on the final grant phase devoted to making improvements to ConservationSpace have been moving at a rapid pace. The project team at the National Gallery of Art and the development group we are working with have been making great strides in addressing some of what was considered a "first draft" of a feature in the software. In some instances, the initial release of a feature worked well and does not need to be considered for improvement. In other cases, changes were needed to make a feature perform more efficiently than original designed.

A number of end users suggested great improvements to the functionality of ConservationSpace. They are too numerous to list here and described outside of their context, they would not effectively illustrate how they function better in the system. However, users familiar with the system have been pleased with the progress that is being made.

As a part of showcasing the vast array of improvement that are being developed, this website now has 2 new pages called "Release Notes" and "Future Improvements." Release Notes will be a copy of the developer's list of improvements made to the system taken from the Help page in ConservationSpace that describes what has been newly added to the program. Future Improvements illustrates in table format, both a high level view of what the development team is working on for future releases as well as a detailed description of some of the changes and additions that are being rolled out during this final development effort that will conclude in April 2019.

A great deal of effort has been devoted to creating comprehensive help pages in ConservationSpace. Illustrated above is both an improved help page along with showcasing the improved feature of adding video to ConservationSpace. In this case short videos have been made to teach users about some of the fundamental tools in ConservationSpace.

The end users and the development team have been pleased with the results being distributed in the feature improvements to the system. Our focus on the changes is being directed toward refining the word processing capabilities of the system, the display results of searches and importation and indexing

of data into the system.

We are working on finalizing the costs of ConservationSpace for both individual and institutional users. The pricing structure document will be released in January 2018.

Questions? Visit the improved website or post a question via email to dcl@nga.gov for individual inquiries not addressed in the website.