Disclaimer: this post was originally formatted as a Facebook Note, so the version below might not contain all the images, layout, ... See the original version here: <a href="http://bit.ly/aJWlQw">http://bit.ly/aJWlQw</a><br>
<br>IR+ is the newly launched Open Source Repository platform, originally developed by the University of Rochester. <br>
<br>
As the university was a long time user of DSpace, <a href="http://www.facebook.com/note_redirect.php?note_id=271812408767&h=593d20e8da998e32e4020652173f9e26&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dlib.org%2Fdlib%2Fjanuary05%2Ffoster%2F01foster.html" target="_blank" title="http://www.dlib.org/dlib/january05/foster/01foster.html">highlighting a struggle to recruit content as early as 2005</a>, I was very surprised to <a href="http://www.facebook.com/note_redirect.php?note_id=271812408767&h=f67420d0f735a50a13c479afb16954b8&url=http%3A%2F%2Fchronicle.com%2FblogPost%2FAs-Open-Access-Chatter-Grows%2F20807%2F%3Futm_source%3Dfeedburner%26utm_medium%3Dfeed%26utm_campaign%3DFeed%253A%2Bchronicle%252Fwiredcampus%2B%2528The%2BChronicle%253A%2BWired%2BCampus%2529%26utm_content%3DTwitter" target="_blank" title="http://chronicle.com/blogPost/As-Open-Access-Chatter-Grows/20807/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+chronicle%2Fwiredcampus+%28The+Chronicle%3A+Wired+Campus%29&utm_content=Twitter">read
in Wired Campus that launching a new, in-house developed platform, was
one of the key points in the strategy to cope with the issues from the
past</a>.<br>
<br>
In the short article on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/note_redirect.php?note_id=271812408767&h=f67420d0f735a50a13c479afb16954b8&url=http%3A%2F%2Fchronicle.com%2FblogPost%2FAs-Open-Access-Chatter-Grows%2F20807%2F%3Futm_source%3Dfeedburner%26utm_medium%3Dfeed%26utm_campaign%3DFeed%253A%2Bchronicle%252Fwiredcampus%2B%2528The%2BChronicle%253A%2BWired%2BCampus%2529%26utm_content%3DTwitter" target="_blank" title="http://chronicle.com/blogPost/As-Open-Access-Chatter-Grows/20807/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+chronicle%2Fwiredcampus+%28The+Chronicle%3A+Wired+Campus%29&utm_content=Twitter">Wired</a>, the claim is made that DSpace lacks the key functionality for having a workspace, and easily customizable Researcher Pages.<br>
<br>
If you think of these arguments in the context of the Sticks vs Carrots
arguments in promoting access, this approach clearly works on the
"carrot" side, trying to convince people to adopt open access with new
features. (while the most common "stick" approach is a deposit mandate,
or using the repository as sole academic bibliography source for staff
promotions etc). Now, examples of both stick and carrot approaches have
been proven successful and unsuccessful in the past. It will be very
interesting to see whether Rochester really hit the "sweet spot" of
functionality that researchers are longing for.<br>
<br>
Although I didn't actually install and run the IR+ platform, I took the time to <a href="http://www.facebook.com/note_redirect.php?note_id=271812408767&h=98c471d0a3ab7ab1edc8f86324e5958f&url=https%3A%2F%2Furresearch.rochester.edu%2FresearcherPublicationView.action%3FresearcherPublicationId%3D16" target="_blank" title="https://urresearch.rochester.edu/researcherPublicationView.action?researcherPublicationId=16"> run through its manuals</a>, to see what DSpace could really learn from IR+, feature wise. <br>
<br>
Here's my list, please comment, or illustrate which of these you think would really substantially improve DSpace:<br>
<br>
<h2>Elaborated user account settings<br></h2><ul><li>Multiple Email Addresses</li><br><li>Publication Name Management (especially useful when you get married during the course of your academic career)</li><br><li>An overview of accepted licences</li>
</ul>
<h2>Researcher Pages</h2><ul><li>File & Link association</li><br><li>Pictures<br></li></ul>
The researcher pages offer nice "profile" functionality, which is way
better than currently offered in DSpace, but way lagging behind the
current state of the art in this field (Facebook, Linkedin,
ResearchGate, ...). Social features on the Researcher pages are lacking
(colleague list, comments, ...), as well as integration of external
services (blogs, twitter feed, ...)<br>
<br>
<h2>User Workspace<br></h2><ul><li>File and Folder Management</li><br><li>Share files with other users</li><br><li>Version management: upload new versions for files</li><br><li>File locks & Permission mechanism</li><br>
</ul>The implementation of User Workspaces gave me a very Google-Docs like
feeling, but without the in-browser editors. Uploading &
downloading files, and managing them locally on a PC could possibly be
a show stopper here. But the version management, permission & locks
and sharing system seem well implemented.<br>
<br>
<h2>Submission</h2>
<ul><li>Multiple collection selection for one submission</li><br><li>File(s) selection first</li><br><li>Collection(s) selection last</li></ul>
As opposed to the DSpace submission process, IR+ starts from the file
upload, and adds metadata provision afterwards. This would be useful in
any approach where some metadata could be automatically generated from
the uploaded file.<br>
<br>
Also interesting is the approach where the collection of choice, to
which the item should be submitted, happens all the way at the end of
the submission proces. It's also possible to submit to multiple
collections.<br>
<br>
The software could be used to implement both a repository, as well as a
referratory: it's possible to add a new "publication" without adding a
file, but adding a hyperlink to an external resource instead. <br>
<br>
An embargo system is present, but has an impact on a whole item,
instead of the individual files. I could upload a summarized
presentation about an item as well as the full text, which is
effectively under embargo, but the embargo settings would have an
impact on both of them.<br>
<br>
Authors or co-authors are defined by text details (name, first name),
... but don't seem to have an (institution) identifier. It's not clear
whether it's possible to differentiate between co-authors from the
institution, and external ones.<br>
<br>
<div class="photo photo_none"><div class="photo_img"><a href="http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=3201385&op=1&view=all&subj=271812408767&aid=-1&auser=0&oid=271812408767&id=123797926589"><img src="http://photos-e.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc3/hs218.snc3/22570_273052886589_123797926589_3201385_2659940_n.jpg" class=" " onload="var img = this; onloadRegister(function() { adjustImage(img); });"></a></div>
<div class="caption">(Co-)Author entry screen</div></div><div class="clear_none"><br>
<br>
The way <b>versioning is handled</b>, both in the area of
workspaces, as well as published content, is really interesting. At
this point, it isn't really clear if the platform really avoids that 2
researchers submit the same publication, or how duplicates are dealt
with in general.<br>
<br>
In my personal opinion, 2 main difficulties in DSpace have not been
addressed, and persist in IR+. It looks like the data model for
published items is more or less as rigid as the one from DSpace: a
hierarchy of collections can contain items, and these items can contain
bitstreams. At the same time, there are no possibilities to relate
items to eachother. So let's say some publications are part of the same
virtual research project collaboration: apart from a keyword
association, or being contained in the same collection, there seems to
be no way to relate these items to eachother.<br>
<br>
There is also no reference to which statistics or reports can be generated or visualized.<br>
<br>
<b>Final verdict</b><br>
<br>
Researcher pages, versioning, the idea of a collaborative workspace
could really be useful additions to DSpace, as well as a few general
tweaks that were implemented in IR+. In the context of DSpace 2
development, I think quite a lot can be learned.<br>
<br>
However, the most important limitations of DSpace (from a data model
point of view) persist in this platform. Judging by the 2009 work on
the DSpace 2 data model, those will be effectively tackled in DSpace 2.
<br>
<br>
On a very personal level, I think it's unfortunate that the obviously
talented developers didn't implement their ideas as a contribution or
patch on DSpace.<br>
<br>
More about IR+:<br>
<a href="http://code.google.com/p/irplus/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" onmousedown="UntrustedLink.bootstrap($(this), "1419613cb53c406603cec170ba69c70a", event)"><span>http://code.google.com/p/i</span><span class="word_break"></span>rplus/</a></div>
<br>Hope a nice discussion & some useful JIRA Feature requests could arise from this.<br><br>regards,<br><br>Bram<br><br clear="all">@mire - <a href="http://www.atmire.com">http://www.atmire.com</a><br><br>Technologielaan 9 - 3001 Heverlee - Belgium<br>
533 2nd Street - Encinitas, CA 92024 - USA<br><br><a href="http://www.togather.eu">http://www.togather.eu</a> - Before getting together, get Tog@ther <br>