ScholarWorks Update - June 2017

Created by
Former user (Deleted)
Jun 07, 2017
3 min read

Another update, another name change

Has the Hydra project been renamed to "Penguin Paradigm?" No. To the dismay of many developers, the new name for Hydra is not related to penguins, although the sentiment behind the movement of togetherness is reflected in the new name. In an earlier update I noted that the Hydra project was being forced to change its overall naming due to a copyright issue with a company that already had Hydra. The official announcement was made that the name "Samvera" was chosen to reflect the culture of community, fellowship, and being together. 

It's important to note that this does not require a name change of the solution packs (i.e. Hyrax, the repository solution pack that we are adopting), so this is mostly invisible to us. But I wanted to be sure to highlight the name change so that when you see or hear "Samvera", know that this is the same as "Hydra" in discussions.

Beta migration progress

CSU, San Marcos - ScholarWorks - More items have been migrated in (1800, so far) and this beta has provided significant support to the development and reliability of the migration toolkit. Additional development effort is going into the api-packager gem in order to share with other institutions that want to migration from DSpace.

With a few necessary features (updates below) to establish the repository as "production", we are making good progress toward that point.

More Betas!

We are fast approaching the timing of establishing the additional repositories in beta. 

I will be proposing group schedules (much like the ULMS project) and getting the initial sites available before the end of the month. Once the data models and customizations are in a quickly shareable state (to avoid errors when copying) the deployment structure will be nearly complete.

Features

Authentication

I am finalizing the configuration options for Shibboleth and CAS authentication. This is mostly built into the system with only a few critical configuration options that have to be set just right, as well as coordination with campus IT departments to allow the new URLs access.

SWORD

This is a critical feature for several campuses, especially if you are already using the ETD deposit workflow from Proquest. I have complete the initial proof-of-concept gem development for a Hyrax sword server. This feature should be complete in its initial state in a few days.

Multi-media

There have been a lot of questions about the ability to stream audio and video content. Note, that this is currently available in dspace, and we are committed to continuing that support. This platform will give us more options for better native integration in fact. I will have example content for review soon.

ScholarWorks Related Projects

CONTENTdm Migration Working Group

While the CONTENTdm Migration Working Group is just getting started, there is a lot of exciting work happening that will be made available soon. 


Conclusion

This is a relatively quick update. We are in the process of preparing to present on this work at OR 2017, and organizing the related working groups. We are progressing well and I'm confident that this summer is going to be quite exciting for ScholarWorks!

Thank you!