In order to facilitate, as a primary objective, the opportunity for thesis authors to be supervised in the preparation of their e-theses, a supervision order system exists to bind groups of other users (thesis supervisors) to an item in someone's pre-submission workspace. The bound group can have system policies associated with it that allow different levels of interaction with the student's item; a small set of default policy groups are provided:

• Full editorial control (EDITOR)
• View item contents (OBSERVER)

Once the default set has been applied, a system administrator may modify them as they would any other policy set in DSpace

This functionality could also be used in situations where researchers wish to collaborate on a particular submission, although there is no particular collaborative workspace functionality.

Creating a Supervision Order

Login as an Administrator, and visit the "Administer Workflow" sidebar menu.  From this screen you can see all Items that are either in the "Workspace" (pre-submission) or "Workflow" (workflow approval process) status.

For Items that are in the "Workspace", it is possible to create a supervision order by clicking on the "Supervision" button.

After clicking "Supervision", you'll be able to create a Supervision order by selecting the "Type of Order" (EDITOR or OBSERVER) and assigning those permissions to an existing DSpace Group.

In DSpace, there are currently two Types of Orders:

• EDITOR - The supervising group is given ADD, WRITE, and READ access to the item (but not any bundles or bitstreams that already exist). Any new bundles or bitstreams inherit the supervising group's policy to permit ADD, WRITE and READ operations.
  • NOTE: Keep in mind, this does NOT give the supervising group REMOVE policies on the Bundle or DELETE on the Item.  This means the supervising group is only able to edit the metadata & add additional bitstreams. They are NOT able to remove existing bitstreams or delete the Item unless additional policies are manually added.
• OBSERVER - The supervising group is given READ access to the item (but not to any bundles or bitstreams that already exist). Any new bundles or bitstreams inherit the supervision group's policy to permit READ operations.
  • NOTE: At this time, there is a known issue where the OBSERVER group will still see the "Edit" and "Delete" buttons, but are unable to perform those actions. https://github.com/DSpace/dspace-angular/issues/2094

Keep in mind, you can adjust the permissions defined to any order after creating the order!  Simply click on the "Policies" button on the "Administer Workflow" page to adjust the default policies for that supervising group!

Supervising a Submission

Once a Supervision Order is created (see above step), all group members for the supervising group will see that Item in their "Supervised Items" list on their MyDSpace page:

Based on the type of Submission Order (or additional permissions provided), all members of the supervising group will be able to view and/or edit that in-progress submission.

Managing Supervision Orders

At any time, an Administrator can remove or recreate Supervision Orders.  This is also done from the "Administer Workflow" page. 

On that page, a "Supervised By" filter exists, allowing you to locate all currently supervised items by the assigned group:

You can click on the "Supervised by" label under the supervised item to remove  the existing supervision order.  New orders can be added by clicking the "Supervision" button.  You can also adjust any supervising group permissions by editing the policies directly by clicking on the "Policies" button.