ETD Software Options Hussein Suleman University of Cape Town October 2003

Overview  ETD Management Requirements  Issues beyond the Basics  Options  Advantages of OS DL Software  ETDdb  EPrints  DSpace  Greenstone  Bottom Line

ETD Management Requirements  Archiving of ETDs  User interface to locate and access documents (Web-based)  Administration interface to maintain archive  Ability for students to submit documents  Ability for university authorities to review and accept submissions

Issues beyond the Basics  Preservation – does the software support long-term maintenance of documents?  Security – how can we be certain that the system cannot be circumvented?  Stability – will it die when we need it most at the end of year/semester?  Interoperability – will it connect into other systems such as the library ILS or the NDLTD Union Catalog?  Standards-compliance – what does it adhere to?  Cost – does it?  Hardware – what do we need to run the software?  Support – how much staffing do we need to run it?

Options  Use the ILS  Write your own software  Outsource management to a company or consortium  Use an open source digital library (DL) software package ETDdb EPrints DSpace Greenstone

Advantages of OS DL Software  Free!  OAI compliance out-of-the-box  Tested by many others already  Community of use – active support  Closely tracks research and trends in information management and Internet technology  Mostly tailored especially for document submission/review/archiving

ETDdb  Early ETD management software created at Virginia Tech  Perl Web server CGI scripts and Mysql database – few prerequisities and simple to install  Not very well maintained but used by many institutions and at VT for ~5 years!

ETDdb Interface

EPrints  Software to archive electronic pre-prints of journal/conference proceedings, but easily adaptable to ETDs  Perl Web server scripts and Mysql database, plus a few Perl libraries  Needs a bit of effort for initial installation and customisation but has a slick user interface  Active user community in many different areas (NDLTD uses EPrints for individuals whose institutions do not have archives!)  Modifying the software can be tricky

EPrints Interface

DSpace  DSpace was developed by Hewlett-Packard for MIT to manage its institutional repositories, but it is open source and free for anyone else to use  Has the backing of a professional software development company  Based on Java servlets, Postgres database, Java libraries  Still somewhat unproven – but very promising

DSpace Interface

Greenstone  Well-known open source digital library software, funded largely by UNESCO for digital libraries in third-world countries  Good support for compression and full-text indexing of documents  Alas, it does not support submission of documents – only works for fixed collections Not really suitable for ongoing management of ETDs Next version may be different – 2005/6?

Bottom line  No easy solutions  ETDdb – most specific and oldest tried-and- tested solution You’re largely on your own  EPrints – largest community of users Software works but difficult to change  DSpace – most professional software Still in testing phase

Links  ETDdb  EPrints  DSpace  Greenstone

That’s all Folks! direct all heckling and flames to: