Fedora:
What’s New, What’s Coming
Thornton Staples
Co-Director of the Fedora Project
University of Virginia Library
National Library of Wales
October 24, 2005
Fedora is……..
• Fedora is a foundation for many kinds of information
management strategies
• Fedora was never intended to be an end-user
application
• Fedora is a powerful, flexible repository management
system
• Fedora can be the “plumbing” for formally defined
webs of content
IF someone asks you how Fedora
compares with DSpace……..
Tell them to look at these clients:
• The Elated Client
• NSDL’s web submission client
• VALET, an institutional repository client from VTLS
• FEZ, an institutional repository client developed at
the University of Queensland in Australia
(see http://www.fedora.info/tools for more info about all
four of these)
“Fedora Inside”
Known Use Cases
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Digital Library Collections
Institutional Repository
Educational Software
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Information Network Overlay
Digital Archives and Records Management
Digital Asset Management
File Cabinet / Document Management
Scholarly publishing
Fedora 2.1 Features
• Authentication plug-ins for Tomcat
– Plug-in #1 : Tomcat user/password file or database
– Plug-in #2 : LDAP tie-in
– Plug-in #3 : Radius Authentication
• Support for SSL
• Authorization module
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XML-based policies using XACML
Repository-wide policies
Object-specific policies
Fine-grained policy enforcement
XACML Policies
• API-M policies that can control all of the management
functions at all levels
• API-A policies that control repository access
• Repository-wide object policies
• Object-specific policies about an object as a whole or
any of its components
• We distribute a complete set of example policies
• XACML builder tool coming soon
New in Fedora 2.1 for the
Resource Index
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Resource Index corruption problems diagnosed and
fixed (Kowari memory bug)
Scale and Performance Testing (NSDL 2M objects,
>100M triples)
Sesame support for an alternative open-source
RDF database
Fedora Service Framework
Services
PROAI
OAI Provider
Service
Future
Service
Fedora Repository
Service
Other
Service
Other
Service
Directory
Ingest
Service
Future
Service
ZIP or JAR
input
Apps
Administrator
DirIngest Client
Fedora 2.1 Features (cont.)
• PROAI Server (Advanced OAI Provider)
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Harvest multiple metadata formats
Harvest datastreams and disseminations
Incremental harvest by last modified date
Support for OAI sets
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Facilitate ingest of hierarchical directories of files
Submit files as .zip or .jar (with a METS manifest)
Automatically asserts parent-child relationships in RELS-EXT
Stages content and ingests as FOXML objects into repository
• Directory Ingest Service
• Directory Ingest Client
– Web client (signed applet)
– Browse directory trees, select dir/files, add metadata, add
relations
– Packages as zip/jar and ingests into Fedora repository
Fedora 2.1 Features (cont.)
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Rebuild Utility for Repository Indices
Improved logging using log4j
– Trippi.log
– Kowari.log
– Repository log
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Handle System Plug-in for PID Generation
New Command-line utilities
– fedora-reload-policies
– validate-policy
– fedora-rebuild
•
FedoraClient utility class for building new clients
Fedora Development Priorities
2006-2007
• New Fedora Framework Services
• Federated Repositories
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– Federations with name service
– Federation with other repositories (DSpace, aDORE,
arXiv)
“Content Model” Specification Language
Advanced Object Creation Workbenches
Tools for RDF browse and graph traversal
Scalability/Performance – very large repositories
Web services security and Shibboleth
Code Refactoring
– Fedora as web app (.war)
Fedora Service Framework (2005-07)
OpenURL
Fedora Services
OpenURL
aDORe
Federation
PID
Resolution
Preservation
Monitoring
PROAI
Other
Service
(OAI Provider)
JHOVE
arXiv
Event
Notification
Fedora Repository
Service
Preservation
Integrity
OpenURL
GDFR
DSpace
OpenURL
Access
Point
Pathways
InterDisseminator
Directory
Ingest
Fedora
Search
Apps
Fedora
Workflow
External
Workflow
Dialog Box Name
Text:
Text
Text
Service
Text
Sample Text Here Sample Text Here Sample Text
Here Sample Text Here Sample Text Here Sample
Text Here Sample Text Here Sample Text Here
Sample Text Here Sample Text Here
Text
OK
Cancel
Help
Text
Sample Text Here Sample Text Here Sample Text Here Sample Text Here
Sample Text Here Sample Text Here Sample Text Here Sample Text Here
Sample Text Here Sample Text Here Sample Text Here Sample Text Here
Administrator PolicyBuilder
FIRE Client
Web-based
submission and
basic workflow
Fedora Community Building
• Fedora Advisory Board
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Vision
Commission Working Groups
Prioritize Development
Define Sustainability Model
• Collaborative Development Opportunities
• Share Tools via www.fedora.info
– User-contributed Tools, Apps, Services
Fedora Community Working
Groups
• Preservation Working Group (Ron Jantz, Rutgers)
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Requirements for preservation services
Define service APIs and technical integration with Fedora 2.1 +
Preservation metadata recommendations for Fedora
Development plan for new services
• Workflow Working Group (Peter Murray, OhioLink)
– Requirements for a workflow service
– Define service APIs and technical integration with Fedora 2.1 +
– Create a reference Implementation with an open-source workflow
engine.
Fedora Community Working
Groups (cont.)
• Outreach Working Group (Linda Langschied, Rutgers)
– Improve content of Fedora web site
– More user-oriented information (currently technical focus)
– Community Showcase – demos, graphics
– Survey database with simple web form to profile users
– Collaboration Environment
– Wiki, Confluence, other?
• Content Model Working Group (under charter)
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Formalization of notion of Fedora content model
XML schema to define content models
Investigate ontology-based content model definition
Round up existing content models and publish to promote reuse
Fedora Web Site
www.fedora.info