RSP Fedora training days January 2009 Richard Green

RSP Fedora Training Days January 2009  The material that follows describes the development of the Institutional Repository and associated services at the University of Hull.  The repository uses Fedora (currently v2.2.3) and a ‘ ’ marks places where Fedora’s features have been particularly useful. 2

RSP Fedora Training Days January 2009 (a) What is a repository? (b) What should a repository do?

RSP Fedora Training Days January 2009  A repository is a place where data … are stored and maintained for future retrieval. A repository can be  a place where data are stored  a place where specifically digital data are stored  a site where eprints are located  a place where multiple databases or files are located for distribution over a network,  a computer location that is directly accessible to the user without having to travel across a network.  Well, what about ‘institutional repository’ then?

RSP Fedora Training Days January 2009  What is an institutional repository?  DSpace? EPrints? Fedora?....?  a showcase for intellectual output?  a passive part of a person’s workflow?  an active part of a person’s workflow?  a records management system?  a preservation system?  ?????

RSP Fedora Training Days January 2009 Firstly, the notion that one 'institutional repository' should hold all of a university's e-objects is an absurd one, and generally recognized by my audiences as soon as I say it. The present state of software does not support such a scheme, nor are the characteristics of the objects anywhere near uniform. A great deal of time and money is wasted by people who haven't yet realized this simple fact. A university needs several ‘e-repositories’ or ‘e-libraries’, whatever you call them. Arthur Sale Professor of Computing (Research), University of Tasmania JISC mail list posting, 14 January 2006

RSP Fedora Training Days January 2009 [Institutional repositories are] “a set of services that a university offers to the members of its community for the management and dissemination of digital materials created by the institution and its community members.” Clifford Lynch Director, Coalition for Networked Information Institutional Repositories: Essential Infrastructure for Scholarship in the Digital Age (2003)

RSP Fedora Training Days January 2009  The repositories landscape is wide and hugely varied with quite extreme views of what does and does not, should and should not, (could and could not?),constitute an institutional repository [IR].  For better or for worse, Hull has taken the view that its Institutional Repository should be ‘content agnostic’ – effectively the ‘Cliff Lynch view’.

RSP Fedora Training Days January 2009 Hull decided to take the IR ‘upstream’ and offer it to users as part of their workflow prior to any sort of publication – a “My Repository” space Repository envisaged as: – Web Services based – wide range of content – IR to be a central, infrastructural service interacting with other core services

RSP Fedora Training Days January 2009

To develop a simple user interface to “My Repository” Web Services, orchestrated by BPEL (Business Process Execution Language), Fedora underneath – (Fedora can offer the web-services, the content agnosticism, and scalability ) Browser-based UI – after experimentation, this was developed using FLEX

RSP Fedora Training Days January 2009  User needs analysis: what do people want (not, “what do we think they want?”)  user = researcher, member of Learning & Teaching teams, administrator, postgraduate, (potentially) undergraduate,...  Interviews followed by on-line survey first at Hull, then more widespread

RSP Fedora Training Days January 2009 (a) What might a user want to get from ‘My Repository’? (b) What might a user want to put into ‘My Repository’?

RSP Fedora Training Days January 2009 we take in as a sine qua non that a [personal] repository interface should not make it difficult to do something that is currently achieved easily the repository interface must allow structuring of a user's personal storage space and have the capacity to hold potentially large numbers of objects, possibly of a range of differing types, for each user the repository should provide an easily usable versioning facility (it must be easy to version a file and to revert to an earlier version) the repository should allow sharing of a private document with a closed group of collaborators and should provide some sort of locking facility so that conflicting revisions cannot occur the repository must make public exposure of content easy and controllable, taking account of digital rights issues as part of that process Green R (2005) R-D3 Report on research user requirements on-line survey

RSP Fedora Training Days January 2009  SAMP  Storage ▪ (safe, backed up regularly)  Access ▪ (easy and from anywhere they have a browser)  Managed ▪ (full version control)  Preservation ▪ (to know it is there when they want it – short- and possibly long- term)

RSP Fedora Training Days January 2009 Document files (for example.doc.rtf/rtfd.pdf.xsd.ps) Image files (for example.jpg/jpeg.gif.png.psd.tif/tiff.eps) Audio files (for example.wav.mp3.aac) Video files (for example.wmv.avi.rm.mpg (and its variants)) Spreadsheet files (for example.xls.xsc) Statistics files (for example from a package like SPSS) Diagrams or CAD (for example from packages such as Visio or AutoCAD) Database files (for example SQL, MySQL, Oracle or Access files) Presentation files (for example PowerPoint files) Web pages Simple text files (this would include.txt and.XML files, for example) Archive formats (for example Zip or Stuffit files) Specialist text formats (for example from LaTeX) Source code and binaries... Green R (2005) R-D3 Report on research user requirements on-line survey

RSP Fedora Training Days January 2009

 Left hand side browses local computer  Right hand side shows the repository represented as a file structure. In fact ‘folders’ are digital collection objects and ‘files’ are digital objects  The large arrows provide up/download

RSP Fedora Training Days January 2009  (Re-) uploading an object creates a version  Double clicking a ‘file’ (object) accesses past versions:

RSP Fedora Training Days January 2009  The tool generates metadata for text objects (.doc,.pdf,.html,.txt) on demand using local data (web services etc) and Data Fountains iVia metadata software: Data Fountains See:

RSP Fedora Training Days January 2009

“Model View Controller” layer providing user interface BPEL orchestrating Web Services (Fedora and other) to move files and objects around Fedora drawing on ID Management System and University Storage Area Network

RSP Fedora Training Days January 2009

 The ‘sharing’ button is not yet implemented but is still firmly on our shopping list.  to allow sharing with specified people or group, for instance for co-authoring  ‘Publish’ is just now implemented but as part of a bigger scheme (REMAP).  Once published:

RSP Fedora Training Days January 2009  The main repository UI is currently a customised ‘Muradora’.  Available direct (www) or through the University portal  Repository content also available through VLE, departmental websites etc.  New UI being developed in conjunction with Fedora Commons, the University of Virginia and Stanford University (the ‘Hydra Project’). 26

RSP Fedora Training Days January 2009  The requirements of an enterprise, production repository call for a slightly more complex provision than we described earlier  For security (sanity?) reasons “My Repository” and the public-facing repository at Hull are different instances of Fedora. Whole thing needs watertight security. (Probably paranoia on our part.)

RSP Fedora Training Days January 2009

The REMAP project will provide additional functionality to the RepoMMan ‘publish’ process Repository objects will be enhanced at the point of publication to service the needs of records management and digital preservation (RMDP) REMAP involves University Archivist and Records Manager; and the Spoken Word Services team at Glasgow Caledonian University Started with user-needs gathering

RSP Fedora Training Days January 2009  The digital object in ‘My repository’ is cloned  new object belongs to IR, author has no rights  The object is reconstructed to fit a standard content model depending on the type of payload including RMDP flags  Object is deposited in a staging area for checking  (or preferred message) sent to author

RSP Fedora Training Days January 2009  Object checked, tweaked and ?approved  RMDP flags set according to content  Object published with appropriate security  not necessarily available to all  Author ed with URL  Calendar server checks object regularly and actions any necessary alerts

RSP Fedora Training Days January 2009 Events – Information only: an event has taken place – requiring action: workflow “this” has just happened you need to do “that” Dates – Information only: object ‘zzzz’ seems to have stalled in a workflow since dd/mm/yy – Information only: document ‘xxxx’ has not been deposited, the deadline was dd/mm/yy – Requiring action: revision/review/update due – Requiring action: specified lifespan reached. Hide? – Requiring action: embargo date reached. Unhide? Status – The repository contains nnn objects of type.vvv Green R, Awre C, Burg J, Mays V, Wallace I (2007) REMAP records management and preservation requirements

RSP Fedora Training Days January 2009 Take default action Snooze for xx days Alerts must be capable of grouping – all the 2008 Geography papers, not twenty alerts for individual Geography papers Yes/no to all and more granular choice – hide these but not those Messages and alerts need an ‘importance’ attached to them so that administrators can rank by urgency Invoke preservation action

RSP Fedora Training Days January 2009 ...but that is work in progress, due to finish March  …and then there is Hydra  a collaboration between Universities of Hull, Stanford and Virginia with Fedora Commons  to build a highly flexible, (re-)configurable, end-to-end workflow-based Fedora system, used through a browser client, from “My repository” right through to preservation

RSP Fedora Training Days January 2009 This work owes much to colleagues elsewhere, key amongst them:  Ian Dolphin  now International Director of the e-Framework for Education & Research, previously Director of e-Strategy, University of Hull  Chris Awre  Information Architect, eSIG, University of Hull  Robert Sherratt  Technical Manager, eSIG, University of Hull  Simon Lamb  Lead software developer, RepoMMan and REMAP, eSIG, University of Hull  numerous contacts around the UK, and internationally, involved with Fedora, Data Fountains, Muradora and BPEL; and, of course, the JISC who funded (and fund!) much of this work.

RSP Fedora Training Days January 2009    edocs.hull.ac.uk 

RSP Fedora Training Days January 2009