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Annotation of nsdl/README, revision 1.1

1.1     ! harris41    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