A usable DSpace with extra funtionalities

1
A usable DSpacewith extra funtionalities

• Ben Bosman, Lieven Droogmans, Bob Vrancken
• Joris Klerkx, Michael Meire, Erik Duval
• K.U.Leuven, Belgium
• Http//www.cs.kuleuven.ac.be/hmdb

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Context
Educational repositories Learning
objects Ariadne, LOM, ProLearn, Globe
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OVERVIEW

• RSS
• What is RSS ?
• Why ?
• RSS in DSpace 1.4.
• Issues further development
• Usability
• Administration

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RSS
What is RSS ?

• Really Simple Syndication is
• a lightweight XML format designed for sharing
  headlines and other Web content. Think of it as a
  distributable "What's New" for your site ...
• (Source http//www.webreference.com/authoring/la
  nguages/xml/rss/intro/)

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RSS
Why ?

• Advantages
• Over e-mail subscriptions
• Easy sorting
• RSS subscriptions for both communities and
  collections
• View the updates on items when you want
• ? Improved usability
• Other advantages
• Configurable feed parameters
• Maximum amount
• Maximum timeframe

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RSS
RSS in DSpace 1.4.

• How it works ...
• General concept
• Collection RSS feed with all items
• Community RSS feed with items from last 7 days
• Nb of items and timeframe is configurable
• How feeds are generated
• Based on open-source project RSSlibj(Source
  http//enigmastation.com/rsslibj/)
• Requests handled by separate servlet

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RSS
RSS in DSpace 1.4.
How it looks ...
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RSS
RSS in DSpace 1.4.
How it looks ...
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RSS
RSS in DSpace 1.4.

• Scalability / Performance
• Average Pentium4 3.000 items in 10 seconds
• New feed is only generated when changes are
  needed AND user requests the feed
• Usability
• Feeds available for both community and collection
  
• ? no confusion
• Overview of all feeds to add multiple feeds at
  once
• More about usability later on

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RSS
Issues further development

• Configuring feed parameters
• In admin webinterface rather than hard coded
• Different scope for each community/collection
• Need for database changes (new table)
• Access privileges (read permissions)
• Hide metadata from private items
• User-specific feeds with password
• Handles
• Feed is similar to bookmark ? persistent
  identifier

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OVERVIEW

• RSS
• Usability
• General approach to usability testing
• How was the usability test conducted ?
• General results and possible solutions
• Conclusion
• Administration

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Usability
General approach to usability testing

• Determine functionality, target audience, goals
• Develop test-scenarios
• Recruit test participants
• Conduct test
• Analyze results en redesign
• Evaluate solutions

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Usability
How was the usability test conducted ?

• Think aloud protocol
• better understanding of the user's mental model
• 5 active users
• 5 test scenarios and a questionnaire (1 hour)
• ? 1 day in the test lab for each cycle

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Usability
How was the usability test conducted ?

• Center for usability research _at_ Leuven

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Usability
How was the usability test conducted ?

• Focus on
• Errors made by users
• Do they like it?
• Functionality
• Submission process
• Search
• Browse
• Labeling and navigation
• RSS

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Usability
DSpace usability issues

• Submission process
• The explanation for each metadata-field is
  insufficient
• Users dont understand the cancel/save button
• A summary of completed steps could be helpful
• Search
• The order of the search-results is not clear
• Refine their search ? link to advanced search
  hard to find
• Users want more information in their search
  results

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Usability
DSpace usability issues

• Submission process
• The explanation for each metadata-field is
  insufficient
• Users dont understand the cancel/save button
• A summary of completed steps could be helpful
• Search
• The order of the search-results is not clear
• Refine their search ? link to advanced search
  hard to find
• Users want more information in their search
  results

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Usability
DSpace usability issues

• Submission process
• The explanation for each metadata-field is
  insufficient
• Users dont understand the cancel/save button
• A summary of completed steps could be helpful
• Search
• The order of the search-results is not clear
• Refine their search ? link to advanced search
  hard to find
• Users want more information in their search
  results

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Usability
DSpace usability issues

• Submission process
• The explanation for each metadata-field is
  insufficient
• Users dont understand the cancel/save button
• A summary of completed steps could be helpful
• Search
• The order and selection of the search-results is
  not clear
• Refine their search ? link to advanced search
  hard to find
• Users want more information in their search
  results

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Usability
DSpace usability issues

• Submission process
• The explanation for each metadata-field is
  insufficient
• Users dont understand the cancel/save button
• A summary of completed steps could be helpful
• Search
• The order and selection of the search-results is
  not clear
• Refine their search ? link to advanced search
  hard to find
• Users want more information in their search
  results

21
Usability
DSpace usability issues

• Submission process
• The explanation for each metadata-field is
  insufficient
• Users dont understand the cancel/save button
• A summary of completed steps could be helpful
• Search
• The order and selection of the search-results is
  not clear
• Refine their search ? link to advanced search
  hard to find
• Users want more information in their search
  results

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Usability
DSpace usability issues

• Other results
• Browse
• If the communities and collections list is long,
  users dont get a good overview of the contents
  of DSpace
• Labeling and navigation
• Many labels were confusing
• RSS and email updates
• Users want some extra explanation about how RSS
  works and what items are contained in the feed
• Difference between RSS and e-mail notifications
  not clear

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Usability
Conclusion

• Good functionality ? good usability or
  likeability
• Perform your testing
• With well-defined goals
• For specific target audience (keep number of
  users small)
• In specific context (functionality, scenarios)
• Work iteratively

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OVERVIEW

• RSS
• Usability
• Administration
• Importance of decentralized administration
• Current administration
• Problems
• Possible solutions

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Administration
Importance of decentralized administration

• Cornerstone of DSpace instance
• poor administration/authorization ? poor
  usability
• Key issue in choosing a digital repository
• easy initial DSpace configuration (setup)
• Scalability

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Administration
Current administration
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Administration
Problems

• Problems
• creating groups and granting permissions
• permissions need inheritance
• Using group names to indicate submitters and
  admins ? inconsistencies
• No consistency in granting permissions
• Actions
• General admin (group 1)
• Reviewers/metadata editors (database)

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Administration
Possible solution
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Administration
Possible solution
Only roles in web interface keep admin away from
complexity of actions
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Administration
Open issues

• Workflow members
• Only at level of collections
• Or rather at all levels
• DELETE and/or REMOVE action?
• DELETE allows current objects removal
• REMOVE allows removal of sub-objects

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Administration
Open issues

• Internal implementation for permissions
• Roles itself hard when new roles are generated
• Separation of roles into actions much easier to
  create and customize roles
• Internal implementation of inheritance
• Roles only certain roles have inheritance ?
  complex when actions are used internal for
  permissions
• Actions should someone with read right on a
  community also be able to read all items?
• differently depending on the particular role

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QA

• Contact
• erik.duval_at_cs.kuleuven.ac.be
• http//www.cs.kuleuven.ac.be/erikd