Steve
Given that we are expecting money in the public sector to be relatively tight over the next couple of years I would expect there will be a drop in the overall scale of the new development of Recorder. Over the last two years, the total cost of the project was 150K and 100K respectively but this has included significant enhancement of the system. It is unlikely that this level of investment in Recorder will continue.
That said, all of the medium term strategies for Recorder have included identifying the costs of the basic ongoing maintenance of the application which include things like bug fixing, dictionary maintenance, keeping pace with new technologies etc. This is obviously essential if we are to realise the investment that has been made in the system (both in terms of development and implementation - for example within the LRC community).
One of the items on the agenda for the Recorder steering group next week will be clarifying the strategy for identifying these ongoing costs and how they will be funded. It obviously relies on keeping the members of the steering group engaged but I am confident that all see the on-going maintenance of the package as critical to realising the investment they have made to date and securing the level of use that the package current enjoys. In addition there has been interest from other European partners and we are also considering whether there is any opportunity here to help unwrite the core running costs.
I will post a further update after the Steering Group.
Best wishes
Steve