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    1: This is a pilot release of the NSDL-LONCAPA Gateway.
    2: 
    3: The goal
    4: ========
    5: Implement a metadata exchange of resources from
    6: NSDL (http://www.smete.org) to LON-CAPA (http://www.lon-capa.org)
    7: and vice versa.
    8: 
    9: More information is in the doc/ directory.
   10: 
   11: What's new
   12: ==========
   13: For a history of this software, you should work through
   14: the CVS repository.
   15: 
   16: export CVSROOT=:pserver:USERNAME@install.lon-capa.org:/home/cvs
   17: cvs login
   18: cvs co nsdl
   19: 
   20: How to build and install
   21: ========================
   22: 
   23: cd nsdl/build
   24: make build
   25: make install
   26: 
   27: Important files
   28: ===============
   29: The stylesheets for carrying out the metadata conversion are
   30: nsdl/lib/stylesheets/*.xsl  .
   31: 
   32: The Apache web handler modules are defined in the directory:
   33: nsdl/lib/perl/Apache/  .
   34: 
   35: The Apache configuration file (see below also) is
   36: nsdl/conf/nsdl.conf  .
   37: 
   38: The source-to-target is defined by nsdl/build/gatewayfiles.lpml
   39: (an XML file defines how the software is "rendered" onto the system).
   40: 
   41: And, there are other files.
   42: 
   43: System requirements
   44: ===================
   45: * Apache and mod_perl
   46: * Graham Barr's TimeDate module (http://search.cpan.org/search?dist=TimeDate)
   47: * XML::Xalan perl module (http://search.cpan.org/search?dist=XML-Xalan)
   48: 
   49: To configure your machine, you will need to add the following
   50: line to your /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf file.
   51: 
   52:   Include conf/nsdl.conf
   53: 
   54: (You will then need to restart your web server;
   55:  /etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd restart)
   56: 
   57: Issues
   58: ======
   59: This is a pilot effort.  The goal was to enact a reasonable
   60: solution and directly uncover difficult issues.
   61: 
   62: Here are some of the remaining issues
   63: * ISSUE: User authentication
   64:   PROBLEM: users are crossing domains, so browser-cookie validation can't work
   65:   SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS: should require a GPG public key and/or
   66:                        servers should communicate to coordinate passing of user
   67:                        and/or some kind of proxy or central verification system
   68: * ISSUE: Imperfect metadata cross-walking
   69:   PROBLEM: There are a range of imperfect mappings between Dublin Core and
   70:            LON-CAPA metadata fields as well as between IEEE LOM and LON-CAPA
   71:            metadata fields.
   72:   SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS: Improve the LON-CAPA metadata that is collected and
   73:                        place more importance on the exhaustive IEEE LOM
   74:                        standard rather than the weaker Dublin Core standard.
   75:                        In the future, to get to Dublin Core, it might make
   76:                        sense to convert LON-CAPA to IEEE LOM and *then*
   77:                        go to IEEE LOM metadata standard.
   78: * ISSUE: Set hierarchies
   79:   PROBLEM: Asking for ListIdentifiers from LON-CAPA will return a really long
   80:            list that represents a "jumbled" repository.  Currently,
   81:            ListIdentifiers, ListRecords, etc return error messages--
   82:            we do not yet support set hierarchy results.
   83:   SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS: authors should be able to nominate their records
   84:                        for being part of a meaningful collection of academic
   85:                        resources; thus multiple OAI-distributed metadata sets
   86:                        would actually be contained within LON-CAPA
   87: * ISSUE: Code thoroughness
   88:   PROBLEM: Limited time.  I had limited time (100 hours) to enact a gateway.
   89:   SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS: Invest more time.  The API and documentation
   90:                        could be a better match for what is implemented
   91:                        and vice versa.
   92: * ISSUE: Making SMETE available to LON-CAPA
   93:   PROBLEM: Ummm... I thought SMETE supported OAI.  The only interface I find
   94:            is enriched HTML forms.
   95:   SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS: SMETE should support OAI or some exporting of XML files
   96:                        in Dublin Core or IEEE LOM or whatever they are using.
   97: 
   98: Author
   99: ======
  100: Scott Harrison, 2002