https://www.justasspecial.com/about
With the help of Berkeley's Discovery team, we hope to put mechanisms into place to ensure the longevity and sustainability of Just As Special's foster care resource database.
Due to both permanent team members pursuing new professional directions, we are approaching a point where it will no longer be possible for us to update and maintain the Just As Special database to the degree it requires to function optimally. Because of this, we are exploring options for archiving and safeguarding the data and metadata collected, as well as making it available for those who wish to interact and work with it (perhaps for research purposes, etc.).
By the end of the Discovery program, we aim to have the mechanism in place for passing on the stewardship of the data to an entity with greater resources and bandwidth than ourselves, if not having completed that process already. We hope that this project will provide students with hands-on experience in ensuring the longevity of a dataset, as well as experience with what winding down a data project looks like. A lot of opportunities are available regarding starting new and exciting projects, but opportunities are available (from what we gather) in experiencing what happens in safeguarding a project for posterity, even it can no longer grow as it used to.
