Institutional Repository software research
BSU Libraries' current institutional respository (IR) software, ePrints, is not being updated as regularly for Windows-based servers as for Linux-based servers. In addition, the Digital Media Repository has a number of collections with strict licensing requirements, and we need IR software that can assure compliance when research is deposited to our Cardinal Scholar repository.
Current findings for dSpace and BePress
Fedora
Per a webinar I listened to, you can write a "policy" that can restrict access "at the datastream level."
dSpace
From webinar: can restrict access at item level, not bitstream level.
From Jim Halliday @ IUB's IUScholarWorks:
"In DSpace, you can set authorization policies at a number of levels (communities, collections, individual items, and bitstreams within items). You can create groups of users, and set policies that apply to those groups. If you have a default policy for a collection, for instance, all of the items in the collection will inherit that policy unless explicitly altered. It is possible to have an item with multiple bitstreams, and give each bitstream a separate policy. However, in the default installation, you can only set these specific policies AFTER that item has been submitted, and not as a part of the submission process. Here at IUB, we do integrate DSpace with CAS, but only for authentication, not authorization. So CAS doesn’t really help us with putting people into groups or anything like that."
From Kristi Palmer @ IUPUI Libraries:
"DSpace can handle restrictions at many levels. The 'built in' abilities are not as robust as one would hope. Currently when I want to restrict an item I must turn off all public access and then individually add the emails of those who are allowed to view the item. This can be solved by connecting DSpace with ADS or some other sort of mass authentications system that an institution may have in place. We have yet to implement a DSpace connection to IU’s already established authentication but know that others have done this. IU Bloomington being one of them. That being said, I think if you could connect to an already established authentication system you would then be able to limit in a better way, ie only those with certain credentials already established through that auth. system would be able to view certain items."
From Mark Wood @ IUB Library:
"DSpace doesn't concern itself with the interior of a deposited object. A bitstream (for example, a PDF) is either accessible or not, in its entirety. An item can contain more than one bitstream, and bitstreams can be individually access-controlled. You could set up permissions such that some of the bitstreams within an item are accessible only by certain groups. But that doesn't sound like what you want to do. You could perhaps offer two versions of a document: one with protected images, accessible by a select group, and the other without those images, more widely accessible. I can't recall any software which applies access control within a single file."
BePress' Digital Commons
Received reply from Dave Stout requesting dialog by phone.
