Are there other groups (& other timelines) that we need to consider when setting our own timeline?

You are the first WG to meet and do these things, so you get your pick. ;-) You can see the ST's plan of work for the year in our minutes at http://www.orbiscascade.org/nwda/news.html. There are only two other Working Groups: Standards and Digital Program; each of them have their own pages as well. 

Keep in mind that the UDWG combines the former functions of the UT and ID working groups. So you're it as far as the functionality and presentation of the NWDA website.

 

When we apply for IRB approval, is there also a required approval from/to Orbis? And do we need to include the Orbis group in any application?

I don't think we need to do any approvals, but I can check with John in my weekly meeting with him tomorrow.

How quickly could we put a survey on the site to get direct user feedback/ user demographics (not just those who have visited/contact repositories)? We'd like to know both who is visiting our site and who is not visiting our site to target them for UT4.

The Alliance has a professional subscription to zoomerang. If you give me a survey text, I can have it up and running pretty quickly. How quickly we can link from the NWDA site would be up to Al and co., but should be pretty quick.

 

When you are in a finding aid, in the subject section, is it possible to have the general subjects linked to bring up all other related collections? Is there a policy that would restrict this? Is it technically possible to do this? Is this a functionality that is relatively easy to implement?

I could ask Al about this. This may be something that would involve a lot of Stylesheet work. Al and his crew are tied up with a lot of loose threads (wow, that's a great mental picture) for the next month or so.