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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: To get a good overview on the metadata conversion, I recommend
   30: you look at the nsdl/prototypes/metadata_convert.pl script
   31: (perldoc -f metadata_convert.pl).  Among other things, this
   32: provides a list regarding the crosswalk possibilities of
   33: LON-CAPA to&from IEEE-LOM and LON-CAPA to&from Dublin Core.
   34: 
   35: Currenty, the four stylesheets for carrying out the metadata conversion are:
   36: * nsdl/lib/stylesheets/dcnsdl_to_loncapa.xsl
   37: * nsdl/lib/stylesheets/lomnsdl_to_loncapa.xsl
   38: * nsdl/lib/stylesheets/loncapa_to_dcnsdl.xsl
   39: * nsdl/lib/stylesheets/loncapa_to_lomnsdl.xsl
   40: 
   41: The Apache web handler modules are defined in the directory:
   42: nsdl/lib/perl/Apache/  .
   43: 
   44: The Apache configuration file (see below also) is
   45: nsdl/conf/nsdl.conf  .
   46: 
   47: The source-to-target information is defined by nsdl/build/gatewayfiles.lpml
   48: (an XML file defines how the software is "rendered" onto the system).
   49: gatewayfiles.lpml is used in many locations inside nsdl/build/Makefile.
   50: 
   51: And, there are other files.
   52: 
   53: System requirements
   54: ===================
   55: * Apache and mod_perl
   56: * Graham Barr's TimeDate module (http://search.cpan.org/search?dist=TimeDate)
   57: * XML::Xalan perl module (http://search.cpan.org/search?dist=XML-Xalan)
   58: 
   59: To configure your machine, you will need to add the following
   60: line to your /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf file.
   61: 
   62:   Include conf/nsdl.conf
   63: 
   64: (You will then need to restart your web server;
   65:  /etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd restart)
   66: 
   67: Issues
   68: ======
   69: This is a pilot effort.  The goal was to enact a reasonable
   70: solution and directly uncover difficult issues.
   71: 
   72: Here are some of the remaining issues
   73: * ISSUE: User authentication
   74:   PROBLEM: users are crossing domains, so browser-cookie validation can't work
   75:   SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS: should require a GPG public key and/or
   76:                        servers should communicate to coordinate passing of user
   77:                        and/or some kind of proxy or central verification system
   78: * ISSUE: Imperfect metadata cross-walking
   79:   PROBLEM: There are a range of imperfect mappings between Dublin Core and
   80:            LON-CAPA metadata fields as well as between IEEE LOM and LON-CAPA
   81:            metadata fields.
   82:   SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS: Improve the LON-CAPA metadata that is collected and
   83:                        place more importance on the exhaustive IEEE LOM
   84:                        standard rather than the weaker Dublin Core standard.
   85:                        In the future, to get to Dublin Core, it might make
   86:                        sense to first convert LON-CAPA to IEEE LOM and *then*
   87:                        go to the Dublin Core metadata standard.
   88: * ISSUE: Set hierarchies
   89:   PROBLEM: Asking for ListIdentifiers from LON-CAPA will return a really long
   90:            list that represents a "jumbled" repository.  Currently,
   91:            ListIdentifiers, ListRecords, etc return error messages--
   92:            we do not yet support set hierarchy results.
   93:   SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS: authors should be able to nominate their records
   94:                        for being part of a meaningful collection of academic
   95:                        resources; thus multiple OAI-distributed metadata sets
   96:                        would actually be contained within LON-CAPA
   97: * ISSUE: Code thoroughness
   98:   PROBLEM: Limited time.  I had limited time (100 hours) to enact a gateway.
   99:   SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS: Invest more time.  The API and documentation
  100:                        could be a better match for what is implemented
  101:                        and vice versa.
  102: * ISSUE: Making SMETE available to LON-CAPA
  103:   PROBLEM: Ummm... I thought SMETE supported OAI.  The only interface I find
  104:            is enriched HTML forms.
  105:   SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS: SMETE should support OAI or some exporting of XML files
  106:                        in Dublin Core or IEEE LOM or whatever they are using.
  107: 
  108: Author
  109: ======
  110: Scott Harrison, 2002