COS
Product development and maintenance : COS’s primary roles are
the technical development of the preprints repository, aggregation
service (SHARE), submission workflow, user and administrator interfaces,
integrations with data repositories and other services, and service
administration. This will be accomplished with a substantial investment
of personnel across the infrastructure team. Management/team leads will
devote 2 person months each. Infrastructure staffing includes
Product with team lead and 1 FTE product manager; Labs
with CTO and 1 FTE developer for exploration, prototyping, and
architecture; Engineering with Technical Lead and Senior Project
Manager and 6 FTE developers for SHARE (2), service and repository
integrations (1), Preprint services (2), add-ons/service integrations
(1) and 1 FTE designer and a 0.33 FTE technical evangelist for service
and repository integrations; QA with QA Lead with 1 FTE QA
Associate for automated, manual, and regression testing.
Technical partner resourcing will be administered through COS. A 0.67
FTE developer and 0.5 FTE senior test engineer will provide key
deliverables of conversion tool set. Professional and consulting fees
are also reserved for specialized support or mini-awards to external
groups and individual freelance developers that offer relevant expertise
and open-source services, and for nominal awards to biomedical data
repositories to facilitate API integrations. We include a yearly expert
group meeting for planning and co-development of conversion and
screening tools.
Marketing and community engagement : COS will lead marketing
initiatives for The Commons and collaborate with other stakeholders on
community development. This includes participation and promotion at
society meetings and conferences; partnership development with service
providers, societies, funders, institutions, and journals; webinars and
education campaigns; and execution on the marketing strategy.
Management/team leads will devote 2 person months each. Community
staffing includes the community manager with support from 1 FTE
community relations specialist, and the marketing manager with support
from 1 FTE marketing specialist. Travel resources for 24 trips per year
will support marketing and community engagement at society and relevant
service meetings, and bringing key partners together for collaboration.
Substantial resources are identified to support specific marketing
activities for earned, shared, owned, and paid media. This budget can be
adjusted if responsibilities for marketing will be shared with ASAPbio.
Details of budget estimates for each activity appear as a budget
appendix.
Sustainability : COS will lead development and implementation of
a sustainability model. Work on establishing the sustainability model
and transitioning to a fully distributed stakeholder funding model will
begin immediately so The Commons can transition smoothly to the new
model after the grant period. Sustainability staffing includes the
Funder and Donor Relations lead with support from a grants specialist
and 1 FTE sustainability account manager. This team will work with the
GB and other stakeholders on the definition and strategic plan for the
sustainability model, and the execution of that model with
supporters/institutions.
Organizational leadership, operations, and events : COS
operational staff will ensure the efficient execution of the grant,
organizational policies, finances, HR, and hosting of events. Two person
months of support per year are identified for the Director of Operations
and accounting, grants administration, bookkeeper, and events support
staff. Also, COS’s Executive Director will devote 2 person months to
supporting internal product vision, strategy, and execution and external
community engagement and collaboration.
Hosting : Hosting costs are expected to grow during the five
year project period. There is potential for substantial variability in
hosting costs depending on the extent to which authors attach data to
preprints. We generated two total cost estimates: (1) 5mb (0.0049gB)
average per preprint - assumes occasional storage beyond the preprint,
and (2) 0.19gB average per preprint - current average OSF project size.
Our proposed budget uses the smaller estimate applied to ASAPbio’s
provided projections and can be revisited after year 1.
Screening : Estimates based on ASAPbio’s provided usage
projections for Similarity Check through Crossref.
Service administration, support, helpdesk: Service
administration will be supervised by a combination of the community and
product team leads. The service administrators will be responsible for
rapid review and support of The Commons user community. The budget
anticipates yearly growth in the staffing necessary for maintaining
timely and efficient service administration beginning with 2 FTEs.
Future needs will depend on rate of growth and effectiveness of
automated screening tools.
Other direct expenses : Other direct expenses include computer
purchases (8 per year assuming replacement once every 3 years), software
licenses and internal data back-ups, 10 Salesforce licenses for the
community, marketing, and funding teams, and 3 Desk.com licenses for the
helpdesk.
Facilities and administrative expenses : Feedback from ASAPbio
organizers suggested that there should be no F&A/indirect costs, and
instead all costs itemized in the budget. The budget includes a portion
of COS’s costs for organizational items including rent, parking,
facilities maintenance, furniture, supplies, internet, operational
services, legal consulting, depreciation, and accounting/payroll fees.