1. RepoMMan and the University of Hull Institutional Repository Richard Green

2. RepoMMan project Repository, Metadata and Management project JISC-funded for two years to end May 2007......to develop a BPEL-based, standards-compliant, web- services based, workflow tool for Fedora Closely aligned with the Universitys commitment to deploy an institutional repository

3. RepoMMan Two strands: research – user needs, documentation etc (BPEL, surveys, Beginners guide etc) technical – development Surface tool in University portal and/or Sakai C&LE

4. Hulls vision for a DR Hulls vision for an Institutional Repository is an extremely broad one Conventional view was exposure of completed objects Hulls view encompasses storage, access, management and preservation of a wide range of file types from concept to completion

5. Services Survey revealed very wide range of file types potentially to deal with Storage (backup) Access (from anywhere) Management (sharing, locking, versioning etc) Preservation

6. The repository grand plan

7. Workflow The repository will be a working environment as well as a showcase Aim is to provide storage, access, management and potential preservation painlessly Development based on user interviews and surveys (researchers thus far, soon Teaching and Learning, admin, etc) Currently working on automation of repository processes (file handling, later auto-metadata) Standards-compliant approach using web services

8. BPEL v JBPM Fedora have workflow group in operation – JBPM approach Hulls BPEL/web services approach is complementary (all API-M and API-A functions are available through WSDLs) Eventual alternate approaches for the Fedora Community

9. 3-tier stack Web services (inc Fedora) orchestrated by BPEL Spring MVC layer JSP presentation layer Soap requests and responses http requests and responses

10. Fedora web services Three tier model means BPEL must communicate with Fedora WSDLs Fedora 2.1(.1) WSDLs based on rpc/encoded messaging style: BPEL cant reliably validate this via XML schema (nor can several other things!) New WSDLs written for Fedora based on document/literal style: these validate OK (Release in 2.2 ?) Great example of Fedora community development (Fedora – Hull – Rightscom)

11. Managing user content Try to need only a shallow user learning curve Surface repository in known user environments (Portal, Sakai) Expose it as a network drive? Use Fedora collections as pseudo- directories

12. Get an existing object (versioning) User gets current version by default but can see (and manipulate) older versions

13. Metadata generation Take contextual metadata from environment (LDAP, Portal, Sakai) Generate additional metadata from content (text, JHOVE etc) Allow user to edit / tweak Acknowledgements to the Arrow consortium for the design idea

14. Coming next Late summer: we hope to have a demonstrator of some of the workflow processes for researchers – working through the University Portal and the Sakai C&LE Autumn: turn our attention to administrative and T&L needs. Exam paper repository.

15. Project website and contact http://www.hull.ac.uk/esig/repomman r.green@hull.ac.uk