On Monday, November 22, the Texas Digital Library upgraded most TDL-hosted Vireo installations to the latest version of its electronic thesis and dissertation management software. The new version includes several bug fixes and feature enhancements that will improve overall user experience with the system.
Vireo is the TDL’s software system for managing the submission, approval, and publication of electronic theses and dissertations.
The primary enhancement to the most recent version of Vireo (version 1.1.0.3) is greater flexibility in working with ETD embargoes, including publication delays and patent holds. The new version allows administrators to create multiple, customized embargo types, and it provides faculty and student users with more information about embargoes.
Vireo 1.1.0.3 also fixed several known issues in the software, including the following improvements:
- It repaired the Add/Save a Filter function, which was previously not working properly in the Vireo Admin interface.
- It enabled administrators to sort lists of ETDs by the UMI Publication Release column.
- It changed the default selection for UMI Publication release to “unchecked” in the student submission interface.
- It upgraded the MARCXML export tool to include a more complete set of ETD metadata fields.
The work on Vireo happened over the course of two development sprints in Fall 2010, with Ryan Steans (TDL program coordinator) and Laura Hammons (Thesis Office Director at Texas A&M) serving as product owners. TDL development team members who worked on developing and installing the new version of Vireo include Otto Fox, Jade Lindquist, Alex Maslov, Scott Phillips, and William Sidney, as well as TDL Chief Technology Officer Peter Nürnberg.
All TDL-hosted Vireo installations have been upgraded to the new version, with the exception of Texas State University, which opted to perform the upgrade after the current semester has concluded.