Institutional Repository Development: A Case Study of KARI and KAINet

Richard Kedemi

OPEN WEEK

Background – KARI….. The institute generates agricultural information in all the thematic areas

(Livestock health and production, Range management, Food crops, Horticulture and industrial crops, Land and water management, Adaptive research and socioeconomics)

• Information generated is not easily accessible

• The centres are dispersed throughout the country

• The repository had been built based on WEBAGRIS and integrated with Typo3 CMS (Over 1300 full-text metadata)

• Registered with the Directory of Open Access Repositories – OpenDOAR

http://www.kainet.or.ke…..

KAINETKenya Agricultural Information Network

FAO GLOBAL

DATABASEHARVESTERS

KILIMO MINISTR

Y

KARI HQTS

KEFRI NEW MEMBERS e.g. CBK

KARI - NARL

JKUAT

MINISTRY District

KARI Centres

KEFRI Centres

JKUAT branches

KAINet Objectives • To facilitating access to the scientific and

technical literature in Kenya• Availability of full text content through the IR

development• Strengthen national and institutional capacities

to manage, disseminate and exchange agricultural Information

• Promote use of standard tools and methodologies

• KAINet is a repository of data underlying scientific publications, with an initial focus on agricultural and forestry related fields.

• KAINet was model on WEBAGRIS and integrated into Typo3 CMS installation (Currently having over 35,000 records)

Background – KARI…..

Button Necks• Centralized management of the Repository.• ISP unwilling to support an WEBAGRIS• Modification of fields to include addition field e.g. the

region research a challenge.• IT personnel lack the concept or know-how to

integrate Open Access tools onto their traditionally Windows Platform Networks.

• Limited search functionalities• Limited Interoperability in sharing metadata• Usability and accessibility of both content and the

repository.

Why AgriOceanDspace for KARIKARI needed a robust tool that would

decentralize publishing and management of metadata online. Features:-

• high standards for metadata (AGRIS AP, MODS) and OAI-PMH compliant; Controlled vocabularies (ASFA, AGROVOC);

• a very easy AGRIS AP batch metadata importing feature which enables migration of various format of metadata (XMl and Endnote) manageable.

• AgriOcean Dspace, is a normal Dspace installation with a customized configuration and integrated with AGRIS AP.

http://www.kari.org:8080/kari_repository

Why AgriDrupal for KAINet

• a cataloguing interface that out-of-the-box provides the most commonly used metadata elements in bibliographic databases, in particular those defined by AGRIS AP, but is easily extendable to include any other element;

• special input interface for subject indexing with the AGROVOC thesaurus;

• import and export functionalities based on widely used formats AGROVOC can be used to index any contents:

• a flexible import functionalities allowing periodical incremental import / harvesting of recordshttp://www.kainet.or.ke

KAINet needed a user friendly, easily searchable and Interoperability feastures to enable sharing among stakeholders. AgriDrupal is a normal Drupal installation with a customized configuration and metadata management modules.

Deployment of KAINet repository

Database layer

Apache / IIS

Unix / Linux / BSD / Solaris / Windows / Mac OS X support

PHP libraries

MySQL / PostgreSQL

OS

Web server

Programming

support

Browse

Web services

Manage contentmodel and content

Drupal modules

SERVER

CLIENTS

Feeds / exports Notifications

Feeds / exports

Feeds / exportsFeeds / exports

Setting up and configuration of the repository

• The KAINet repository was built to integrate the metadata which was exported and imported from the institutional repositories of member institutions. Supporting tools were installed and setup: PHP, Apache or IIS, MySQL followed by an upgrade of the Drupal installation to Drupal 6:19 and above.

• To integrated the AGRIS AP with the new repository, the AGRIS AP and AGROVOC modules were installed one at a time.Metadata from the previous KAINet repositories was then migrated. Finally the look and feel of the portal was customized to give it the KAINet brand.

Deployment of KARI repository• The KARI e-repository required

the installation of Java, Apache Tomcat, Postgresql and then the AgriOcean Dspace.

• Key step to note is setting up supporting tools to work properly before running the easy AgriOcean Dspace.

• Metadata was imported from WebAGRIS

• Submission of the metadata into the right communities by the new users.

• The look and feel of the AgriOceanDspace search interface was customized to harmonize it with the KARI portal.

The Project The core team• A Drupal/Dspace expert from KARI undertook the migration of website,

metadata and customization of the AgriDrupal for KAINet and the installation, migration and customization of AgriOceanDspace for KARI.

• The KARI Library team undertook the validation of the metadata. • The FAO team, in-charge of both AgriDrupal and AgriOceanDspace,

offered technical support.

Agridrupal&

AgriOcean DspaceCommunities

http://aims.fao.org

Results• Increased user engagement due to friendly well

structure and organization repositories • Decentralization of management of the repository• Increased discoverability and increased overall

traffic• With the successful migration of the two

repositories we believe that we are on track in achieving greater visibility

• Improved and varied search ability of the metadata

• Performance and scalability increased

CHALLENGES• Absence of institutional policies that support

open access, low awareness of copyright and Intellectual property rights (IPR) issues relating to the digital environment by content generators, and inadequate technical infrastructure.

• The absence of appropriate information management skills making it difficult for information managers to setup, administrator and manage repositories.

LESSONS LEARNT• System comparability: in both cases being able to use the right

versions of supporting tools, that have been tested and are supported by either AgriDrupal or AgriOceanDspace communities of users, was key to success. For example implementing a lower PHP or MySQL versions than the ones tested with the systems would cause the system not to work.

• Technical skills: availability of technical ICT skills to make adjustments in some of the configuration files (my,ini, php.ini, config.ini and .htaccess) to improve the performance of the supporting resources, is extremely important.

• Collaboration: among various stakeholders in the institution is critical. Content generators (research scientist in this case), information managers and ICT specialists all bring difference skills and knowledge to the initiative and need to work together.

RECOMMENDATION• Build appropriate capacity relating to these new

technologies especially with Database management and Web Interface development. IT personnel lack the concept or know-how to integrate Open Access tools onto their traditionally Windows Platform Networks.

• Agridrupal: Implement a one-time importer function.• Implement Work flows: among various players in the

institution is critical. Content generators (research scientist in this case), information managers (librarians and documentalists) and ICT specialists all bring difference skills and knowledge to the initiative and need to work together.

WORK FLOWS

ICT

RO

LO

Conclusion“With the even emerging open source tools for managing and exchanging content, especially metadata to improve accessibility and visibility, there is need to choose the

right tools based on requirements analysis. The challenge for most information managers in the

developing world is how to ensure that they get the right tool. AgriDrupal and AgriOceanDspace are tailor-made to meet the requirements of storing, enriching and sharing

agricultural information. However, these tools require good ICT skills and well documented processes to foster

achieving, exchange and sharing of information. ”