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This page lists common questions about the DSpaceDirect hosted service. If you have additional questions not answered below or if you are interested in a service quote, please contact customerservice@duraspacecontact digitalservices@lyrasis.org |
DSpaceDirect vs. DSpace
DSpaceDirect is a hosted version of
the latest, out-of-the-box
DSpace software. The service is provided by the
DuraSpaceLYRASIS non-profit organization and allows institutions of all sizes to store, organize, and manage DSpace repository content in the cloud. DSpaceDirect can be used to preserve and provide access to digital objects and makes content easily searchable by end users and easily managed by content curators.
In order to make your DSpaceDirect site easier to
work withuse, we've slightly tweaked which out-of-the-box DSpace features are enabled or disabled by default. Below is a brief summary of our default settings for DSpaceDirect. As a DSpaceDirect customer, you may ask for a different set of features to be enabled or disabled based on your own needs.
Enabled by default in DSpaceDirect:- DSpace XMLUI (XML based UI): Each DSpaceDirect site has its own custom theme, which is based on the default "Mirage" XMLUI Theme which comes with DSpace.
- Discovery search feature: This allows for filtered/faceted searches within DSpace.
- Usage Statistics (Solr-based): This allows for Community/Collection/Item usage statistics to be captured.
- Google Analytics may be enabled and is recommended.
- Bulk Metadata Editing is increased to 500 items at a time. This allows administrators to change the metadata of up to 500 items at once, instead of the default of 20.
- Google Scholar friendly embedded tags: These HTML tags are hidden into each page and allow Google Scholar to more easily index/search your site.
- RSS/Atom feeds: These feeds allow users to subscribe to your site or to individual Communities or Collections. Users can receive notifications of newly added content in their RSS reader of choice.
- Checksum checker feature: This feature is run occasionally and verifies that individual files stored in DSpaceDirect have not become corrupted.
- OAI-PMH interface: This allows for external systems to harvest metadata via OAI-PMH and link to content in your site.
- SWORD (v1 and v2) interface: This allows for external systems to deposit content via the SWORD protocol (after authenticating)
- All other standard "out-of-the-box" DSpace features (except where noted below)
Disabled by default in DSpaceDirect: (
may be enabled by request)
- Item Level Versioning. This feature lets you version Items within DSpace. However, as the feature is still very new to DSpace (and disabled by default), we have chosen to leave it disabled in DSpaceDirect.
- Advanced Approval Workflows. These allow more flexibility to the workflow approval processes. However, as the feature is still very new to DSpace (and disabled by default), we have chosen to leave it disabled in DSpaceDirect.
- Ability to assign Creative Commons licenses to Items during deposit. As this feature is disabled by default in DSpace, we have chosen to leave it disabled in DSpaceDirect.LDAP or Shibboleth Authentication. By default, DSpaceDirect just uses DSpace's internal authentication. However, if your institution uses LDAP or Shibboleth we will gladly help configure DSpaceDirect to use it as well.
- SWORD Client. This feature allows admins to send content from DSpace to an external system which supports the SWORD protocol.
Please note that the above list will change over time as new features are added to DSpace. For DSpaceDirect, our general policy is to ensure default DSpace features are always enabled. We also try to enable optional DSpace features which we feel are both widely useful and well established/stable.
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The DSpaceDirect Demo Repository offers a chance to preview a basic DSpaceDirect repository. If you would like an administrative accunt account in order to test the administrative functions please create an account on the Demo repository and contact us to have the account upgraded to test the administrative features.
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DSpaceDirect can allow for up to 1 TB of total storage (both content and index) per account.
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DSpace Data Transfer
DuraSpace can migrate content transfer data out of existing DSpace repositories (any version), or out of other systems that can export metadata to a CSV file. We cannot transfer or migrate content out of proprietary from repository systems such as CONTENTdm and BePressDigital Commons.
For detailed information about content migration, see our Content Migration DSpace Data Transfer Information Sheet.
Customized Submission Process & Metadata Fields
DSpaceDirect accounts include the default DSpace metadata fields, default submission fields, default OAI-PMH fields and default search, browse, and discover filters. You can review these default fields here. Your institution can customize these fields and other aspects of the submissions process (such as licenses and advanced embargoes) for a one time fee. For details see the Enhanced Submission Process and Metadata Form.
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By default DSpaceDirect repositories have a DSpaceDirect URL: repositoryname.dspacedirect.org. If you would like to redirect to a URL on your institutions website, you can add the custom URL package for a one-time fee. Please note that in order to set up a custom URL, you must be able to manage your institution’s DNS or request changes of your institution’s DNS, as well as provide a valid SSL certificate. It is a good idea to discuss these requirements with your institution's website adminstrator prior to starting your subscription.
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Location-Based (IP) Authentication
Local Location-based authentication is available for DSpaceDirect repositories or restricted collections within a repository as part of the LDAP and Location-Based Authentication Package or the Shibboleth Authentication Package. For detailed information see the Customized Authentication Information Sheet..
Extended Support
All DSpaceDirect plans come with access to a customer support ticket system for 10 free support requests annually. The Extended Support Package allows unlimited access to our customer support ticket system for support needs, questions, and other issues. This package is especially useful for large migration accounts.
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Factors that influence implementation timing include how many other new accounts are in the implementation process queue (May-September can be particularly busy) and the number of add-on packages required. If packages such as Custom URL or Local Authentication are included, it is important to inform local web administrators and authentication managers early in the process so they are aware of the requirements for these packages.
Security
Please see our Security FAQ.
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Custom Code
DSpaceDirect customers are not be able to make direct changes to the code of their DSpace site (though customers may request theme changes or similar). The DuraSpace organization handles the installation, maintenance, and upgrades of the DSpace code and the servers it is running on as part of the hosted and managed DSpaceDirect service.
Allowing customers to add customized code may complicate the upgrade process for their site, making it potentially very difficult for DuraSpace to perform an upgrade on your behalf. Further, allowing customers to have direct server access (e.g. via SSH) can also be a security concern as DuraSpace runs several customer sites on a single server. For those reasons, DuraSpace does not give customers direct access to update or modify the DSpace code for their site.
API
Currently, DSpaceDirect offers the following (out-of-the-box) DSpace APIs:
Full Text Search (I.E. Search Within Documents)
DSpaceDirect does provide full text search but
only for specific document formats (PDF, Word, PowerPoint, HTML, plaintext). Note that image-based PDFs (e.g. PDFs generated from scanning physical documents)
cannot be full text searched unless they are
OCRed before being deposited into DSpace.
Please note that documents are indexed in an overnight process (as this activity can take some time, depending on the quantity and size of documents). This means that you will not be able to search within the full text of documents until the
next day (however, document metadata is searchable immediately). There are also (usually rare) occasions where DSpace is unable to index a supported document for full text searching. If you notice that a particular document is not searchable after a day passes, please do let us know.
Representing Journals in DSpaceDirect
In the DSpace structure, often the Journal is represented as a Community (or sub-community) with the issue represented as a Collection, and individual articles as Items within the collection. This arrangement may or may not be ideal depending on how your institution may want a Journal displayed/represented, but DSpace does still allow for basic Journal/Issue metadata (and thumbnails) as Communities/Collections support metadata and thumbnails.
Currently, there are no integrated media viewers (for video or audio files) in DSpaceDirect, although you are able to *store* any media file format. For images, you are also able to store any image format with DSpaceDirect, and certain image formats (BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG) will automatically have a thumbnail generated to be used within the user interface. However, there are not slideshow or image gallery capabilities.
CAS Support
DSpaceDirect does not support CAS currently. However, there was some development work being conducted in order to support CAS in the latest release of open source DSpace. The work will likely be rolled into next year's release of DSpace which at that time, would then be made available in DSpaceDirect.
Dublin Core
Yes, DSpaceDirect metadata is all in Dublin Core as this is what the DSpace software uses to store metadata internally.
Through the DSpaceDirect administrative interface, you can export metadata to an Excel spreadhseet or CSV filespreadsheet or CSV file.
Usage Statistics
For detailed information about accessing statistics, please see: Getting Started How-To: Usage Statistics
Built-in usage statistics (Solr-based) are included in DSpaceDirect. Community/Collection/Item statistics are captured. By default only admins can see the built-in statistics. It is possible to make very basic statistics publicly available, but only information about downloads and views are displayed per item/collection/community.
Google Analytics may also be enabled and is recommended. Google Analytics more thoroughly weeds out spider and bot activity, resulting in more accurate statistics.
Google Analytics - Which Statistics are tracked / Where to find them
Individual DSpace page visits: In Google Analytics, this info is under the "Behavior -> Site Content -> All Pages" section. It should allow you to easily see the top pages visited, and filter that list based on page name or path.
- By default you'll get a list of the top pages visited (by their URL). But, you can filter that list by either putting in the URL of the item page (in the searchbox), OR by clicking on "Page Title" in the "Primary Dimension" and then putting the *Title* of the Item in the searchbox.
File downloads: These are recorded as "events" in Google Analytics. So, this info is under the "Behavior -> Events -> Pages" section. By default it'll show the top URLs used to download Items, but it also provides ways to filter that information based on page name or URL.
- Again, by default it'll show the top URLs used to download Items. But if you click on "Page Title" in the "Primary Dimension" you can filter that list based on the Item's *Title* (again put it in the search box). So if the Item is titled "My Research Paper" put that in the search box. This will give a total number of file downloads for a specific Item (even if the Item has multiple files). Clicking on the resulting Title again brings you to a page that lists downloads per file (if the item has multiple files).
