File:  [LON-CAPA] / nsdl / README
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Sun Jul 14 07:40:56 2002 UTC (21 years, 8 months ago) by harris41
Branches: MAIN
CVS tags: HEAD
status of things; how to install software; dependencies; configuration

    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: 
   18: How to build and install
   19: ========================
   20: 
   21: cd nsdl/build
   22: make build
   23: make install
   24: 
   25: System requirements
   26: ===================
   27: * Apache and mod_perl
   28: * Graham Barr's TimeDate module (http://search.cpan.org/search?dist=TimeDate)
   29: * XML::Xalan perl module (http://search.cpan.org/search?dist=XML-Xalan)
   30: 
   31: To configure your machine, you will need to add the following
   32: line to your /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf file.
   33: 
   34:   Include conf/nsdl.conf
   35: 
   36: (You will then need to restart your web server;
   37:  /etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd restart)
   38: 
   39: Issues
   40: ======
   41: This is a pilot effort.  The goal was to enact a reasonable
   42: solution and directly uncover difficult issues.
   43: 
   44: Here are some of the remaining issues
   45: * ISSUE: User authentication
   46:   PROBLEM: users are crossing domains, so browser-cookie validation can't work
   47:   SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS: should require a GPG public key and/or
   48:                        servers should communicate to coordinate passing of user
   49:                        and/or some kind of proxy or central verification system
   50: * ISSUE: Imperfect metadata cross-walking
   51:   PROBLEM: There are a range of imperfect mappings between Dublin Core and
   52:            LON-CAPA metadata fields as well as between IEEE LOM and LON-CAPA
   53:            metadata fields.
   54:   SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS: Improve the LON-CAPA metadata that is collected and
   55:                        place more importance on the exhaustive IEEE LOM
   56:                        standard rather than the weaker Dublin Core standard.
   57:                        In the future, to get to Dublin Core, it might make
   58:                        sense to convert LON-CAPA to IEEE LOM and *then*
   59:                        go to IEEE LOM metadata standard.
   60: * ISSUE: Set hierarchies
   61:   PROBLEM: Asking for ListIdentifiers from LON-CAPA will return a really long
   62:            list that represents a "jumbled" repository.  Currently,
   63:            ListIdentifiers, ListRecords, etc return error messages--
   64:            we do not yet support set hierarchy results.
   65:   SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS: authors should be able to nominate their records
   66:                        for being part of a meaningful collection of academic
   67:                        resources; thus multiple OAI-distributed metadata sets
   68:                        would actually be contained within LON-CAPA
   69: * ISSUE: Code thoroughness
   70:   PROBLEM: Limited time.  I had limited time (100 hours) to enact a gateway.
   71:   SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS: Invest more time.  The API and documentation
   72:                        could be a better match for what is implemented
   73:                        and vice versa.
   74: * ISSUE: Making SMETE available to LON-CAPA
   75:   PROBLEM: Ummm... I thought SMETE supported OAI.  The only interface I find
   76:            is enriched HTML forms.
   77:   SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS: SMETE should support OAI or some exporting of XML files
   78:                        in Dublin Core or IEEE LOM or whatever they are using.
   79: 
   80: Author
   81: ======
   82: Scott Harrison, 2002

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