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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
1.2     ! harris41   17: cvs login
        !            18: cvs co nsdl
1.1       harris41   19: 
                     20: How to build and install
                     21: ========================
                     22: 
                     23: cd nsdl/build
                     24: make build
                     25: make install
1.2     ! harris41   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.
1.1       harris41   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