CLIF Project22 March 2011

Simon WaddingtonCentre for e-Research (CeRch)King’s College London

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CLIF Project• CLIF - Content Lifecycle Integration Framework• Funded by JISC

• 01 July 2009 – 31st March 2011• University of Hull• King’s College London

• Centre for e-Research• Software to be released under open source

licence• Currently in evaluation phase

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Objectives• Study role of digital repositories in the content

lifecycle

• Understand how cross-system user activity can be supported by the repository

• Investigate where the repository is best positioned in the content lifecycle• Includes use as a staging area

• Investigate:• The flow of content into the repository for preservation • The retrieval of content from the repository for reuse.

• Understand usage of integrated system in context of institutional preservation policies

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Use cases• Use cases cover research, teaching and

administration• Learning materials

• Examination papers - prepared in SharePoint, and copied to a public repository.

• Exams may be carried out online via VLE• Student solutions and marks stored in private repository

• Research publications and datasets• Publications – preparation in collaboration system

(SharePoint, Sakai). • After approval, publication is public repository• Data associated with research paper stored in private

repository folder

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System overview

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SharePoint – Fedora integration • Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

• Fedora Commons repository v3.4• Open source application developed by DuraSpace

• Aim to provide a “reference implementation”• Produce components that are reusable in production

deployments• SharePoint MySite used as basis of integration• Provides administrative and end user interfaces• Creation of MySite for new user automatically

deploys CLIF solution – “feature stapling”• Includes creation of Fedora repository user account and

private folders • Enabled multiple optional features (e.g. for deposit)

that can be deployed according to user requirements

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Fedora repository• Fedora provides only a

repository platform • Front ends – Hydra, Islandora, ..

• Uses Hydra content models (simple Fedora objects)

• Hierarchical folder structure• Private and public repository

folders• Access management handled

by XACML policies created within SharePoint

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Deposit to Fedora• Deposit options selected from menu on item in

document library• Copy to Repository

• Copies content item and metadata to private repository folder

• User can browse to repository folder• Bulk copy – copies multiple items

• Move to Repository• Moves content item and metadata to private repository

folder• Replaces item in document library by a hyperlink• Places copy of hyperlink in Archive List (on MySite sidebar)

• Publish to Repository• Copies item to public repository• Default is to run approval workflow• Option to provide MODS metadata entry form for entry of

detailed preservation metadata

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Retrieval of documents• Retrieval of moved documents

• Documents (not metadata) can be retrieved by selecting hyperlink in Archive List

• Search – based on SharePoint indexing• Search of document metadata in SharePoint• Full text search of documents in SharePoint• Search of document metadata in Fedora

• Currently restricted to retrieval of simple Fedora objects• Required to implement compund and complex objects

to provide full repository browse functionality

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Configuration options• Document list contains “project” column

• User can configure list of active projects from link on MySite sidebar

• Documents can be associated to specific projects• Publication of documents

• Administrator can configure locations of public repository folders

• On publication, user can select from list of allowable locations

• Set access level • Selectable from document context menu• Enables private documents to be shared

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Implementation• Implementation uses C# middleware

• Wrapper for Fedora API-M and API-A web services• Performs Fedora object creation in FOXML schema (native

Fedora format)• Document metadata extracted from SharePoint and

mapped to Dublin Core• Additional Policy.xml created to handle access• Generates RDF relations between Fedora objects to

create repository folder structure "RELS-EXT"

• SharePoint UI implemented as features• Features can be selectively deployed by administrator

according to requirements of specific user groups.

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Further developments• SharePoint 2010 porting

• Currently under investigation• Basic framework including Hydra content object creation

can be directly ported• Packaging as RIC plug-in?

• Search• Integrate with Solr indexing to provide full text search of

Fedora • Repository browse functionality

• Need to handle compound/complex Fedora objects• Verification of Fedora objects for Hydra compatibility

• Security• User account creation and management in Fedora

• Excel web services• Provide features to support processing and archival of

research data using shared Excel spreadsheets

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Further Information

Project website

http://www2.hull.ac.uk/discover/clif.aspx

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Demo

Available today