Disclaimer: This is an independent learning project and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Zotero or its developers. Always check the official Zotero documentation for the latest instructions.

Maintenance plan

Outdated content erodes trust faster than no content. This plan keeps the academy current with a product that updates itself several times a year.

1. Version stamps on every lesson

Every lesson ends with: *“Last verified against Zotero documentation on ."* The stamp is a promise — a reader can tell at a glance how old the verification is. The stamp lives in the [lesson layout](https://github.com/iwyusdaz/research-tools-academy/blob/main/docs/_layouts/lesson.html) so it cannot be forgotten page by page.

2. Review triggers (when to re-verify, without being asked)

Trigger	What to review	Where the signal comes from
Zotero major or minor release (e.g., 10.x → 11)	All 11 lessons + both tools + job aids; re-baseline the version stamp	Zotero version history
Zotero patch release (10.0.x)	Skim the changelog for UI-affecting changes; update only touched lessons	Changelog
Forum spike in a category the academy covers	The related lesson and troubleshooting flow	Zotero forums; the `fix_route` categories in the support analysis
“Did this solve it?” yes-rate falls below 70% on any flow	That flow’s steps against current docs	Tool analytics (in a real deployment)
A GitHub issue from the outdated-lesson template	The reported page, within a week	Issue tracker

3. Quarterly audit

Once a quarter (calendar reminder, ~30 minutes):

Re-verify one full learning path against the current official documentation (rotate: G1 → W1 → P1).
Spot-check the other two paths’ steps against the changelog.
Re-run the link checker against the live site (tooling/linkcheck.mjs).
Confirm every lesson’s version stamp is within one minor release; refresh stale ones.
Log the audit in CHANGELOG.md even when nothing changed — absence of evidence needs evidence of absence.

4. Feedback channel

Report an outdated lesson — a GitHub issue template pre-filled with the questions that make a report actionable: which page, which step, what the official docs say now, your Zotero version and platform. Issues are triaged with the review triggers above; a confirmed outdated lesson gets the version stamp removed immediately (honesty first), then the fix.

5. Ownership

This is a portfolio project maintained by a sole author. The maintenance load is deliberately small: 11 lessons, two tools with data files (flows.json, items.json) that separate content from code, and job aids generated from HTML. A real team would add a named owner per path and a review SLA (one week) — the structure here anticipates that.