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 2 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 3 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 its 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 4 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 5 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 6 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 7 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 8 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 9 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 10 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 and some 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 11 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 12 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 13 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 14 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 15 Chart: Institutional departments involved Workgroup staff dispersed over several departments

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

17. ePrints.FRI – a case study 17 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 18 ePrints.FRI – 2008 revision Bilingual interfaces Multilingual metadata and documents

19. ePrints.FRI – a case study 19 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 20 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 21 Technical support 1 st level: IT department System engineer Support engineer 2 nd level: involved technical staff ePrints software engineer Automation script engineer Network administrator

22. ePrints.FRI – a case study 22 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 23 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 24 Thesis submission workflow

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

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

27. ePrints.FRI – a case study 27 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 28 Publication HTML page

29. ePrints.FRI – a case study 29 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 30 Web integration – defense announcements Generated by automation script from ePrints 3 XML

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

32. ePrints.FRI – a case study 32 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 33 Google ranking

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

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

36. ePrints.FRI – a case study 36 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 37 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 38 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 39 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 40 Thank you Any questions ? Miha.Peternel@fri.uni-lj.si