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ePrints.FRI – a case study

ePrints.FRI – a case study. Open Access Repositories with EPrints EIFL-FOSS and EIFL-OA free online workshop 23 May 2011 Miha.Peternel@fri.uni-lj.si. Overview. Context Why EPrints ? Installation & configuration Case Study: Organization & service implementation @ FRI

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ePrints.FRI – a case study

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  1. ePrints.FRI – a case study Open Access Repositories with EPrints EIFL-FOSS and EIFL-OA free online workshop 23 May 2011 Miha.Peternel@fri.uni-lj.si

  2. ePrints.FRI – a case study Overview • Context • Why EPrints ? • Installation & configuration • Case Study: Organization & service implementation @ FRI • Case Study: Submission policy • Measuring success • Conclusion

  3. ePrints.FRI – a case study ePrints.FRI • ePrints.FRI is the publications database of the Faculty of Computer and Information Science, University of Ljubljana • It is based on open source ePrints with modifications • It was started in 2002 using ePrints 2, now it’s ePrints 3 • It is integrated into Open Archive Initiative indexer network • It was the first OAI archive in wider region • It is integrated into existing faculty web infrastructure • In 2008 it has become official digital repository for all student theses and dissertations • It currently hosts 995 student works, 155 scientific works, plus some books and other teaching materials

  4. ePrints.FRI – a case study Context ePrints.FRI is an effort of Faculty of Computer and Information Science There is a separate University Library Most of material is also catalogued in COBISS (metadata only)

  5. ePrints.FRI – a case study Goal Initial goal (volunteer effort, 2002) Provide a simple self-archiving tool for the laboratory supporting Open Archive Initiative (prof. Franc Solina) Try to deploy it Faculty-wide Revised goal (institutional effort, 2008) Fulfill national directive on thesis publishing Revise policies for digital publishing Try to provide single point of meta-data entry

  6. ePrints.FRI – a case study Why did we choose ePrints 2 in 2002? Open Access Initiative (OAI) Web publishing of primarily scientific output and teaching materials Web based interface Open source on standard Linux servers (RedHat) Highly customizable metadata Multilingual metadata The other OAI alternative in 2002 not as customizable

  7. ePrints.FRI – a case study Why did we choose ePrints 3 again in 2008? Mandatory publishing of student output (theses, dissertations) Improved metadata customization Improved workflow customization Modernized web user interfaces CSS, help, auto-complete, preview… Fulfilled all our customization requirements Alternatives did not offer any advantages for our needs No security or performance issues with ePrints 2 Easy import of metadata (XML) and documents (PDF,DOC) Support from ePrints wiki and mailing list

  8. ePrints.FRI – a case study Installing ePrints Test installation: Pick your favourite OS (we prefer Debian Linux) Install Apache web server, MySQL, Perl Download & install EPrints package for your OS Add a few more Perl packages that EPrints requires Set up a test archive by running the configuration scripts Optionally install some more tools that EPrints can use Pre-production installation: Configure and finalize metadata before you start adding documents Configure your server Virtual server has benefits

  9. ePrints.FRI – a case study Customizing ePrints All the source code is available A collage of Perl, XML, XHTML and structured text files The code base is modular The Perl code stubs that are expected to be modified are exposed in archive configuration directories Most other configuration is done by modifying XML/XHTML Some hacking of base Perl code or additions to code may be required for minor fixes (custom import/export, OAI language preferences…) or other special needs Each new version is more customisable out of the box Wiki documentation is extensive but not always up to date

  10. ePrints.FRI – a case study Customizing ePrints 3 in practice Code and libraries – Perl Metadata definition – Perl Subject hierarchy and departments – text or XML Apache web server– conf files Workflow – XML Interface language – XML andsome Perl OAI export – Perl, text Automation scripts – Linux crontab, some PHP Autocomplete – text, PHP Custom views – Perl, XML, XHTML Custom references – XHTML, some Perl

  11. ePrints.FRI – a case study OAI configuration Enter policy information (Re)configure metadata mapping Enable & test (via web interface) Language prioritization is an issue with multilingual metadata We rewrote some code

  12. ePrints.FRI – a case study Developmental phases ePrints 2 – 1 person effort Basic customization – less than 1 month Internal testing – 1 laboratory Dedicated server & multilingual debugging – 1 month ePrints 3 – institutional effort Organized process

  13. ePrints.FRI – a case study Developmental phases – ePrints 3 Institutional planning Metadata definition Customization Translation Staff education Testing Migration of existing publications from ePrints 2 Initial deployment Workflow facilitation Statistics

  14. ePrints.FRI – a case study Workgroup staff Workgroup manager: prof. Mira Trebar Software engineers (2) IT department representative Student office representative Library representative Linguist Plus occasional institutional representatives More student office & library personnel involved in final testing

  15. ePrints.FRI – a case study Chart: Institutional departments involved Workgroup staff dispersed over several departments

  16. ePrints.FRI – a case study Faculty senate & commissions Workgroup manager ePrints engineer System engineer Library representative Student office representative Linguist Automation script engineer Workgroup organization chart

  17. ePrints.FRI – a case study Developmental milestones Institutional commitment: December 2007 First workgroup meeting: January 2008 Test installation: April 2008 Metadata testing: May 2008 Institutional presentation: June 2008 Metadata migration, Testing: August 2008 Institutional deployment, Testing: September 2008 Public deployment: October 2008

  18. ePrints.FRI – a case study ePrints.FRI – 2008 revision Bilingual interfaces Multilingual metadata and documents

  19. ePrints.FRI – a case study Hosting IT department, Faculty of Computer and Information Science Platform: IBM server VMWare hosting multiple virtual servers Virtual Debian Linux server Backup Backup virtual server images Provided by IT department

  20. ePrints.FRI – a case study Service sustainability Printed instructions 4 student office staff educated 2 library office staff educated One ePrints administrator plus one support engineer One system administrator plus one support engineer Virtual server with full-system backup System, metadata and publications all backed up Technical support

  21. ePrints.FRI – a case study Technical support 1st level: IT department System engineer Support engineer 2nd level: involved technical staff ePrints software engineer Automation script engineer Network administrator

  22. ePrints.FRI – a case study Policy formulation and licensing Policy formulated to respect national laws and university workflow Two-track licensing Strict requirements for student theses Scientific papers self-published and checked on best-effort basis Legal paperwork prepared for students Students must sign papers submitting rights for electronic publishing

  23. ePrints.FRI – a case study Student submission Thesis work in printed form Thesis work in electronic form (PDF/DOC on CD) Metadata in electronic form (TXT/DOC on CD) Signed legal paperwork All of above submitted to student office before oral defense, so that announcement and publication proceed automatically

  24. ePrints.FRI – a case study Thesis submission workflow

  25. ePrints.FRI – a case study Workflow facilitation (1) Auto-complete names and titles from a database Avoids tedious ID lookups and related errors

  26. ePrints.FRI – a case study Workflow facilitation (2) Fill in standard fields Prepare links and fix them later

  27. ePrints.FRI – a case study Scientific submission Self-archived by author Electronic document in PDF form preferred Metadata in web forms Self-published by employed author (policy since 2010) Metadata and document validity periodically checked by administrator on best-effort bases Returned to author in case of invalid metadata Removed from public archive in case of a serious problem No legal policy at the moment

  28. ePrints.FRI – a case study Publication HTML page

  29. ePrints.FRI – a case study System integration Web integration Thesis defense announcements Thesis details Personal publication lists Laboratory publication lists Links to content hosted in ePrints Information system integration Morning mails include thesis defense announcements Mentoring and committee participation statistics automated

  30. ePrints.FRI – a case study Web integration – defense announcements Generated by automation script from ePrints 3 XML

  31. ePrints.FRI – a case study Web integration – publication lists Generated by PHP script from ePrints 3 export

  32. ePrints.FRI – a case study Measuring and demonstrating success The first open archive in the wider region, quickly picked up by OAI indexers and big search engines Relatively quick deployment with NO serious glitches Attracted interest from other open-access projects (DRIVER) and faculties Access statistics: AWStats and Webalizer – general web access IRStats – repository specific Increased ability to monitor INTEREST and ORIGIN OF INTEREST for publications and subjects of publications

  33. ePrints.FRI – a case study Google ranking

  34. ePrints.FRI – a case study Visitor statistics (IRStats)

  35. ePrints.FRI – a case study Document downloads (IRStats)

  36. ePrints.FRI – a case study Visitor statistics summary Publication dissemination about triple the number of enrolled students PER MONTH Greatly increased promotion and dissemination of student theses – on average 5 downloads per thesis per month Elevated practical status of thesis as a reference Most visitors arrive by search engines looking for general keywords

  37. ePrints.FRI – a case study Key challenges faced Translation and multi-language specific issues Terminology Missing ePrints language flexibility Missing OAI multilingual support Overcoming resistance to change 1 point data entry for student department Facilitators for data entry (auto-complete, workflow) System integration with existing web software: Ažur, Moodle Metadata set changed from ePrints 2 to ePrints 3 Minor problems with indexing and automatic data transfer

  38. ePrints.FRI – a case study Important unresolved issues Legal policy for scientific publications Centralized archive provides little incentive for self-archiving If Google can find it, who cares about repository Automated integration with current and future national archives Goal: Enter metadata once, publish many times

  39. ePrints.FRI – a case study Conclusion EPrints is relatively easy to install and customize Most things can be customized within provided Perl stubs, XML and XHTML Anything can be changed using basic Perl skills (and time) Google ranks ePrints archives highly Setting up OAI will boost your rankings (OAI indexers will link back to your archive) We did not experience any serious security or performance issues in ePrints code Based on this I can recommend ePrints for your archive

  40. ePrints.FRI – a case study Thank you Any questions ? Miha.Peternel@fri.uni-lj.si

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