The KnowledgeBank:
Powered by DSpace
Laura Tull
Systems Librarian
Ohio State University Libraries
tull.9@osu.edu
WiLSWorld July 27, 2004
The KnowledgeBank
 A knowledge management system for the
university to support the creation, organization,
storage, dissemination and preservation of the
institution’s digital information assets.
 Both a “referatory” providing links to digital
objects and an institutional “repository” that
captures the intellectual output of the university
produced in a digital format.
The KnowledgeBank
 Faculty Expertise Directory
 Web Media Collective
 Digital Union
 Institutional repository
Institutional Repository
 Captures the intellectual output of the
university community
 New scholarly publishing paradigm
 Institutional visibility and prestige
Institutional Repository
 Olentangy River Wetlands Research
Park
 Undergraduate Honors Theses
 Hilandar Research Library – Watermarks
 Polar Oral History Program
DSpace – What we will cover
 What is DSpace?
 DSpace demonstration
 Important features
 Future directions
 OSU’s approach to DSpace
DSpace – What is it?
 DSpace



Open source software
Developed by MIT Libraries and HP
Research Labs
Digital library system/Digital Asset
Management System/Institutional repository
DSpace – What does it do?
 Captures



Digital material in any format
Directly from creators (e.g. faculty)
Large-scale, stable, managed long-term
storage
 Describes


Descriptive, technical, rights metadata
Persistent identifiers
DSpace – What does it do?
 Distributes

Via Web
 Preserves


Bitstream preservation guaranteed
Functional preservation - Institution decides
which formats they will support into the
future
DSpace – Information Model
 Communities
 Collections
 Items (metadata plus bitstreams)
 Digital files (bitstreams)
DSpace – Basic User functions
 Search & browse

all of DSpace, one community or one
collection
 Subscribe to collections
 Submit material (if authorized)
DSpace – Subscribe to a collection
 Register with DSpace
 Subscribe to collections and receive
email alerts of new additions
DSpace – Submit material
 To submit material, users must register
 DSpace administrator authorizes users
to submit material to particular
collections
 Material must be in digital format
DSpace – Important features
 Batch load utility
 Up to three optional workflows
 Templates for metadata
 Access control - Collections can be open
to the world or restricted to a select
group of people
DSpace – Important features
 Transactions are secure (SSL)
 Supports OpenURL linking
 Supports metadata harvesting

OAI-PMH as a data provider
DSpace – Preservation
Bit preservation guaranteed but …
 Persistent identifiers to items and
bitstreams
 Reference model for OAIS
 Records technical metadata upon
ingest

DSpace – Preservation
“History component of DSpace
generates metadata which describes
how the content and metadata
associated with a work within the
system changes over time”
 METS in release 1.2

DSpace – Future directions
 Interoperability with course management
systems
 Incorporating other metadata schemas


IMS/SCORM (educational material)
SIMILE project (HP,MIT,W3C)
DSpace – Future directions
 OCLC is integrating authority control
 Ingest of a web site (iCampus project)
 Google partnership
 Creative Commons license
How to get started
 Understand what faculty want
 Identify a variety of content
 Be flexible
 Do a pilot
 Define your staffing model, policies,
service model, procedures, marketing
plan
Faculty needs and concerns
 Intellectual property, copyright
 Ease of use
 Interoperability with software they
already use (CMS, Powerpoint, etc.)
 Single sign on
 Ability to restrict collections to OSU, their
college or department
OSU’s Staffing model
 Marketing & user support


Knowledge Bank Program Manager (50%)
Systems Librarian (20%)
 Metadata support


Head, Access, Support, & Accounting Department (10%)
Metadata Librarian (50%)
 Technical support


Systems Developer/Engineer – OIT (Less than 10%)
Senior Systems developer (50%)
Funding & costs
 One-time funding from Ohio Board of
Regents’ Research Challenge funding
through June 2005 for startup
 Service level agreement for technical
support (server, storage, personnel) with
the Office of Information Technology.
Policies
 Who can submit?
 What types of content will you accept?
 What will your withdrawal policy be?
 What formats will you support into
future?
OSU Service model
 Community and collection set up
 Training and user support
 Metadata consultation/services
 Storage (currently no cost but …?)
 Preservation services
 Digitization services
OSU Procedures





Market to interested groups on campus
Provide a demonstration of DSpace
Meet with community (workflow, metadata)
Community and collection setup in DSpace
Training (incorporates metadata
recommendations)
 Follow-up user support
DSpace – Important URLs
 OSU pilot (https://dspace.lib.ohio-state.edu/index.jsp)
 DSpace Federation (http://www.dspace.org/)
 MIT (http://libraries.mit.edu/dspace-mit/)
 SourceForge (http://sourceforge.net/projects/dspace)