DLESE OAI software

Getting started

This software contains a data provider and a data harvester. Both the provider and harvester are enabled upon installing this software and can be used immediately.

To use the harvester, see the Harvester administration interface and the harvester documentation.

If this is your first time using the data provider, read below.

Data provider set-up

There are four steps necessary to make your metadata available through the DLESE OAI data provider:

1. Install the DLESE OAI software on your server in a servlet container such as Tomcat. See INSTALL.txt for installation instructions. If you are reading this page you have most likely already completed this step.

2. Supply required information about your repository, such as your repository name and an administrators e-mail address, in the "Repository information" section of the Provider administration page. While not required, you should also provide a namespace-identifier for your repository. The namespace-identifier is similar to an Internet domain name, for example "dlese.org" or "project.dlese.org." You may also enter one or more optional XML descriptions for your repository. If you do not have a description, leave the description field blank.

3. Configure one or more metadata sets in the "Metadata sets" section of the Provider administration page. To do so, click "Add new set" and type in a set name, setSpec and an optional set description. The set name is meant for human consumption, for example "DLESE Community Collection." The setSpec must be a unique key and is used in the OAI protocol to refer to the set, for example "dcc." The optional description field must contain an XML description that refers to the set. If you do not have a description for the set, leave this field blank.

4. Add one or more directory of metadata files for each set you have configured in step 3. After completing step 3, a button will appear that will allow you to choose a new directory and format. In the "directory" field, enter the full path to a directory of metadata files located on your server. The files must contain XML and be named with a ".xml" suffix. The name of the file will be used as the identifier for the item*, after stripping the suffix. In the "format" field, enter the format key that corresponds to the metadata format of the files, referred to in the OAI protocol as the metadataPrefix. For reference, the following metadataPrefixes have been established by the DLESE community:

• adn - The ADEPT, NASA, DLESE item level metadata format.*
• dlese_ims - The DLESE IMS item level metadata format.*
• dlese_anno - the DLESE annotation item level metadata format.*
• news_opps - The DLESE news and opportunities item level metadata format.
• dlese_collect - The DLESE collection level metadata format.
• briefmeta - A compact item level format for displaying brief results in ODL searches.
• oai_dc - An unqualified Dublin Core format that has been defined by the OAI.
• dc_qual - A qualified Dublin Core format.
• dc_simple - An unqualified Dublin Core format, as defined outside of the OAI.
• nsdl_dc - A Dublin Core variation as defined by the NDSL.
• nsdl_collect - A collection level metadata as defined by the NDSL.

*For these formats, this software will parse the file and separate the data into fields such as title and description for indexing, searching and display. The item's identifier will be obtained from the content of the file rather than the file name.

After completing step 4, the software will index the metadata files, which may take several minutes to complete. Once the files have been indexed the metadata will be available for keyword searching using the Provider search page and for browsing using the OAI protocol via the OAI-PMH request page. If the metadata files are later modified or deleted, the software will automatically detect these changes and delete or re-index them for you.

After completing steps 1-4 your metadata will be available for harvesting by others.

This software supports the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH), v2.0. Detailed information about the protocol is outside the scope of the documentation provided here. For background information on the OAI-PMH, please refer to the official OAI-PMH documentation and to additional information and tutorials available through the Open Archives Initiative.

Additional information

The software Documentation provides more information about this software, including a list of features and additional configuration information. Send e-mail to support@dlese.org with questions, comments, or suggestions.