Texas Learning Object Repository | Preservation Network | Thesis and Dissertation Management | Shibboleth Federation | Manakin/DSpace 1.5 | Faculty Services
The Texas Digital Library (TDL) staff focuses efforts upon a few projects at a time. Current TDL development projects are listed below. For a list of existing TDL services, please visit the TDL Services page.
For additional information on current and past TDL projects, see the TDL Publications and Presentations page.
Texas Learning Object Repository (TxLOR)
With support from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, the Texas Digital Library is partnering with UT TeleCampus to create a statewide learning object repository that stores and disseminates materials used in teaching and learning.
The project continues work begun by the University of North Texas, a TDL member institution, which initiated research on the project. For more information about TxLOR, visit the project wiki or the TxLOR blog.
UT TeleCampus has contracted with the TDL to provide technical development services for the project, including the creation of a submission workflow system, to be built in Grails, and a DSpace repository for dissemination of the learning objects.
Preservation Network
The preservation of the digital assets stored in the Texas Digital Library is a fundamental concern to be addressed as part of all the TDL’s services. A robust Preservation Network (PresNet) is being designed to provide long-term storage of digital information, geographically distributed storage nodes, and migration of supported formats to preserve the ability to access materials into the future.
Currently, the TDL Preservation Network consists of four nodes located at Texas Tech University, Texas A&M University, the University of Texas at Austin, and the Texas Advanced Computing Center. The TDL is pushing several terabytes of data across PresNet in partnership with the Lonestar Education and Research Network.
Thesis and Dissertation Management: Vireo and the TDL Statewide ETD Repository
With the backing of a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the Texas Digital Library has created a system for managing the entire life-cycle of electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) from initial submission to final publication. One part of this system is Vireo, a software interface developed by the TDL for online submission of ETDs, as well as for administrative management of the documents through the approval process and finishing with publication in a digital repository. Vireo was developed as an open-source project, using Manakin and DSpace.
A second part of the project is the development of a federated digital repository housing electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) from colleges and universities across Texas. At present, the TDL Statewide ETD Repository includes submissions from five TDL member institutions, with future plans to solicit ETDs from universities all over the state.
As of January 2010, Vireo has been deployed at Texas A&M University, the University of Texas, and Texas Tech University, and is in testing at several other Texas institutions. The TDL continues to support and develop Vireo and released an updated version of the software in March 2010. The updated version includes capabilities for automated SWORD deposit of ETDs into an institutional repository and harvesting of ETDs from member repositories into the TDL Statewide ETD Repository via OAI-ORE.
Shibboleth Federation
In keeping with its commitment to the use of open-source technologies, the Texas Digital Library employs Shibboleth federated authentication software for authentication and identity management. The Shibboleth System is a standards based, open-source platform that allows TDL to authenticate users by leveraging its member institutions’ authentication and identity management systems.
With Shibboleth, faculty and staff at participating TDL member institutions can log on to TDL services using the ID and password they use at their home institutions. The home institutions (or identity providers) give TDL enough information about each faculty member to enable authorization. In this way, faculty members at TDL institutions do not have to create unique IDs and passwords for TDL services, and TDL can leverage the existing authentication infrastructures of its member institutions.
To establish a set of rules governing the exchange of identity attributes among the TDL and member institutions, the TDL created the Texas Digital Library Shibboleth Federation. The TDL Shibboleth Federation is a low-level-of-assurance federation and provides only limited identity checking of providers. Membership in the TDL Shibboleth Federation is available to all TDL member institutions, and the TDL along with its partner, the Lonestar Education and Research Network, provides technical consulting regarding local setup and management for Shibboleth.
In addition to using federated authentication via Shibboleth, the TDL maintains its own identity provider and authentication service to allow access as appropriate to non-TDL members and members outside the TDL Shibboleth Federation.
For more information:
- Shibboleth website
- TDL Shibboleth Federation
- Shibboleth Publications and Presentations
- The TDL/LEARN partnership
Manakin/DSpace 1.5
Manakin is a customizable user interface developed at Texas A&M University, a TDL member institution, for use with the open-source digital repository software DSpace. Released initially with DSpace version 1.4 in January 2007. It became the default interface for DSpace 1.5, which was released in March 2008.
Manakin contributed several key improvements to DSpace, including:
- The ability to create a unique look and feel for each repository, community, and collection, making it possible to match the design and user experience of existing institutional Web sites
- The ability to brand content at the item level, so that individual documents within the TDL federated repository, for instance, are branded with the university logo of the contributing member institution
- New tools that allow the creation of modular extensions to the repository, allowing the modification of content display and the creation of new workflow and ingestion applications; one product of these new tools is Vireo, the TDL’s electronic thesis and dissertation submission and management system
- The ability to visualize metadata, including dates and geospatial information, in the form of timelines and maps
For more information on Manakin, please visit the Manakin/DSpace section of the TDL publications and presentations page.
Faculty Services
Using open-source technologies, the Texas Digital Library has created a suite of faculty services designed to facilitate new ways of communicating and collaborating with other scholars and the wider public. Currently, the TDL provides blogs (powered by WordPress), research wikis (using MediaWiki software), and open-access electric journals (using the Open Journal Systems platform). Faculty members at TDL member institutions may also create personal Web pages in the Faculty Directory or manage academic conferences via TDL Online Conference Management tools. Faculty can request these services by visiting the TDL Services Request System.