The Fedora Digital Repository Project and the National Science Digital Library (NSDL)

1. The Fedora Digital Repository Projectand theNational Science Digital Library (NSDL) July 26, 2005 Dean B. Krafft Cornell University

2. Fedora: Repository Middleware • A Flexible, Extensible Digital Object Repository Architecture • An architecture and toolkit (like IIS or SQL Server), not a vertical application • Audience: system builders – 12 major university or national (Denmark) digital libraries • DSpace in contrast: a vertical application with a fixed workflow targeted at users • So far incorporated in two commercial products: VTLS’s Vital digital library, and Company X’s product – finalist for a large government contract

3. Fedora: Project Details • Collaboration of Cornell and UVa • Development team of 10 developers+leads • Currently implemented in Java; licensed under Mozilla Public License • Funded by Mellon: starting 2nd 3yr $1.4m grant • Cornell leads: Sandy Payette & Carl Lagoze • 20,000+ downloads, active user community • Use cases: Digital Asset Management, Scholarly Publishing, Information Network Overlay, Institutional Repository, Digital Archive and Records Management, Digital Library

4. Fedora Digital Object Model Component View Digital object identifier Persistent ID ( PID ) Relations (RELS-EXT) Reserved Datastreams Key object metadata Dublin Core (DC) Audit Trail (AUDIT) Datastreams Set of content or metadata items (local or external URL redirects) Datastream Datastream Disseminators Web-service methods for distributing views of recombined content Default Disseminator Disseminator

5. Fedora Repository Service • Set of SOAP/REST services: Manage, Access, Search, Query • Fundamental store is XML, with RDBMS cache (Oracle, MySQL), and RDF triple store for relationship queries • Modular architecture: Manage, Access, Storage, Dissemination, Authentication, Authorization, RDF Resource Index

6. Fedora 2.0 Capabilities • Object-to-object Relationships • Ontology of common relationships (RDF schema) • Relationships stored in special datastream (RELS-EXT) • Resource Index (RI) • RDF-based index of repository (Kowari triple-store) • Graph-based index includes: • Object properties and Dublin Core • Object Relationships and Object Disseminations • Powerful querying of graph of inter-related objects • REST-based query interface (using RDQL or ITQL) • Results in different formats (triples, tuples, sparql) • Fedora 2.1 (August 2005) adds • Plug-in Authentication modules • Fine-grained Authorization using XACML XML-based policies

7. Fedora Service Framework(v2.1 & Planned 2005/6-2006/7)

8. National Science Digital Library • K-gray Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education • NSF-created brand and home for digital resources of known high quality • Community of users, contributors and institutions (as providers and consumers) • Creates context for resources (e.g. lesson plans, standards alignment, ratings, annotations, reviews, brands) • Guides selection & use; not just discovery

10. Program Details • Major NSF Division of Undergraduate Education program, over $20m/yr funding • Over 120 NSF grants in program • Core Integration collaboration of UCAR, Columbia University and Cornell University • Cornell provides core technical infrastructure: Fedora-based repository, Lucene-based search, nsdl.org portal • Columbia: Shibboleth authentication; SDSC: Storage Resource Broker archive

11. What Fedora Provides NSDL • Objects: Aggregators (collections), Metadata Providers, Agents, Resources (with local or remote content), Metadata • Relationships: Structural (part of), Equivalence, Membership, arbitrary graph queries • Network overlay architecture: A lens for viewing science content on the net, whether content is local, remote, or archived – it all has a repository-based URL • Web services: disseminations are arbitrary recombinations of content • Authentication/Authorization: Collections and services manage their own repository content

13. Appendix – Additional Information • Fedora website: http://www.fedora.info • NSDL website: http://nsdl.org • An Information Network Overlay Architecture for the NSDL by Lagoze, Krafft et al.: http://www.arxiv.org/abs/cs.DL/0501080 • Fedora: An Architecture for Complex Objects and their Relationships by Lagoze, Payette et al.: http://www.arxiv.org/abs/cs.DL/0501012

14. Selected Fedora Adopters • Current Users: • National Science Digital Library (NSDL): Core Integration • University of Virginia – digital library • VTLS – library systems vendor selling Fedora-based product • Tufts University – digital library and university records management • OhioLink – statewide consortium of academic libraries • Northwestern: Library and Academic Technologies – digital library • ARROW: National Library of Australia and Monash University – nationally distributed institutional repository project • Royal Library Denmark, National Library, and DTU – integrated national digital library • Rutgers University – digital library • Indiana University – digital library • American Geophysical Union – repository of back issues of journals • Library of Congress – National Digital Newspaper Project • University of Delaware – digital library • Hamilton College – digital library • Cornell CIT – Electronic File Cabinet to manage office records • Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center – digital library • Yale University – manage university records • DISA – South Africa, History of Apartheid resistance – record repository • Interesting new proposals • Company X finalist for large government contract • Cornell Lab of Ornithology (data + tools + documents)

15. Fedora Development Consortium • Advisory Board • University of Virginia • Tufts • VTLS • ARROW (Monash University and Nat’l Lib Australia) • Harris Corp. • Danish Royal Library and DTU • Northwestern University • NSDL – Core Integration • Mission • Requirements Definition, Specifications. Joint Development • Commission of Working Groups • Content Modeling • Outreach and Education • Workflow and Service-Oriented Processes • Recommendation for Long-Term sustainability model • Governance and Funding • Set Fedora Free – full open source model (e.g., public SourceForge) • Code Maintenance (UVA until 2012; plan for beyond)