FERM Charge

Owned by Jack Mulvaney (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Apr 21, 2022
3 min read

Charge:

The Five College FOLIO Electronic Resources Management Committee (FERM) is tasked with reaching and maintaining consensus on issues relating to the use of FOLIO as an electronic resource management system, as well as finding ways to support each other and other colleagues in the work of eResource management. The group will be concerned with the electronic resource life-cycle within FOLIO as well as the practice of eResource management as a whole.

The work of this group will primarily center around the following FOLIO apps: Licenses, Agreements, eHoldings, eUsage, and Organizations. Additionally this group will work with the Acquisitions and Metadata groups on cross-app functionality in FOLIO as well as the Five College Discovery and User Experience committees to ensure optimal user experience.

FERM should approach all decisions under the auspices of the Five Colleges Shared Principles.

FERM Responsibilities:

  1. Collaborate with each other and with additional stakeholders or committees regarding electronic resource management workflows, policies, procedures, and best practices across the consortium

  2. Streamline or standardize workflows where appropriate as they relate to the eResource life cycle in all different systems currently being used, and map them to FOLIO when relevant

  3. Review new features and apps and reach consensus on FOLIO system configurations, Five College procedures, new app deployment, and rollout of non-core functionality

  4. Collect feedback and input on decisions which affect all users within FOLIO and which affect eResource use across the consortium

  5. Communicate regularly to the consortium about changes to FOLIO as a system or local decisions that have broad impacts on other stakeholders

  6. Assist other groups or committees to make decisions which have an impact on electronic resource management at the Five Colleges

  7. Participate in the FOLIO Community by attending SIGs, serving on small groups, and acting on behalf of the Five Colleges as good community members

  8. Conduct user acceptance testing of new FOLIO releases and assist with testing the system and reporting bugs

  9. Provide support to Five College FOLIO ERM users in the form of documentation and training

  10. Provide an environment for colleagues across the consortium to become more familiar with electronic resource management, eResource discovery tools, and Five College handling of eResources

  11. The FERM Lead will represent the group when called upon and work with other group leads or committee chairs in order to ensure follow through on decisions made by the group

Membership:

  1. Members serve by virtue of their expertise. Each of the Five Colleges should be represented with one member chosen to serve as Lead of the group. Rotation for the Lead role should mirror that of other Five College Committee Chairs.

  2. A liaison to the FOLIO Implementation Team or subsequent governance group for FOLIO, and a liaison to the Five College Librarians Council (FCLC).

  3. Colleagues may be asked to serve as functional experts to assist the group when needed.

Shared Five College Principles:

  1. Shared resource: The Five College libraries collections make up a single and shared library resource.

  2. Best practices: In an agile manner, standardize, streamline and improve best practices.

  3. Alignment: FOLIO is an opportunity to align multiple systems and create a more unified presentation of Five College library data, enabling more seamless access to collections.

  4. Additional functionality: Once core functionality is established, improvements, and additional functionality can be explored and prioritized.

  5. Communication: Commitment to transparent communication throughout all stages of the project.

  6. Respect one another: When we debate and discuss differing opinions, we will always show respect to individuals. All of us will end up compromising on some aspects of the design or the project work. We recognize that this is hard work and time consuming. Many of us may be pushed outside of our comfort zone; however, we will remain respectful to one another. These guidelines are forward-looking and will guide Five College Library cooperation beyond the FOLIO implementation.

 

This document was approved by the Five College Librarians Council in April 2021

Amended April 2022

Outdated Documents

Original Charge (May 2019)

Second Charge (July 2019)

Third Charge (April 2021)

Current Charge (Live Document)