Please note: These methods have not been tested by CAIRSS against the SEER system. The following information is provided by repository managers and technical officers from individual universities. It is hoped that sharing this information will assist others in configuring their repositories for ERA access.
To handle restricted files for the ERA Trial, USQ will be using their production Eprints Repository only. They will create a new single user specifically for ERA. They have implemented a file naming convention that conforms to NISO standards. Using this file naming convention enables the identification of “Dark Items”. The “Dark Items” will be linked to explicitly in the submission XML. This will prompt the SEER system to authenticate using basic authentication. USQ will not be using any form of IP restriction. Normal users are unable see the listings of the “Dark Items” they are completely hidden even on the meta data page.
There is internal USQ technical documentation that can be provided on request. It includes information on hiding of documents in Eprints 3. Other modifications needed if this path is taken include modifying OAI to only show visible documents, removing document links from search results and stopping the indexing of hidden documents. This documentation is also available.
The only reason the documentation is upon request is that the system it resides on only displays content internally to USQ. CAIRSS will happily consult with USQ Library staff to provide this information if required.
To handle restricted files for the ERA Trial, QUT will be using a simple HTTPS server, with access restricted to SEER by IP, which will only serve RODAs and the statement describing the research component. In this solution all open-access records and documents will reside within QUT ePrints (built on EPrints) and restricted files will reside on the HTTPS server. Both the metadata pages, the RODAs, and the research statements will be listed in the ERA submission and there will be no HTML link from the metadata pages to restricted RODAs or research statements.
Prior to the trial, the RODAs are being manually placed on an internal file share by library staff and named according to a convention which contains the eprint ID, author name, an ID for Research Master, from which the submission will be produced, and an element that describes whether the file is a RODA or a research statement. QUT are aiming to use a SAMBA share to provide ePrints’ editors a means to upload restricted files directly to the server. Alternatively, QUT will secure copy the files up in batch.
The HTTPS file server will likely be running on the same hardware as our EPrints installation as little additional load will be applied to the server by serving static files.
SEER access to open-access records via QUT ePrints is made possible by Apache configuration changes enabling access to metadata pages and RODAs over SSL. QUT are still examining how to alter the links from the metadata page to RODAs to use SSL (so that a reviewer can browse from a metadata page to a RODA within SEER) however a direct link to RODAs using SSL (like those from the ERA submission) already works.
This solution seemed to be the simplest and easiest way of meeting ERA requirements.
QUT investigated a couple of other options which QUT determined were too time-consuming or involved too much risk for the reward.
Using a dark EPrints instance. The open-access repository would contain everything except the restricted RODAs and research statements and the dark repository would contain the metadata pages, RODAs and research statements for any record that a restricted document. This solution including developing tools to migrate records easily from the light to dark repository to support our existing depositing and reviewing workflow.
Modifying our EPrints installation such that restricted RODAs and research statements are restricted to a new SEER ‘user’ and ePrints editors and, additionally, are invisible to all other users. This solution required the minimum of changes to QUT’s existing depositing and reviewing workflow but required a lot of development work including modifying core EPrints files, which QUT considered an unacceptable risk.
The only difference for ERA reviewers between our chosen solution and the alternatives QUT discarded is that there is no link from metadata pages to restricted RODAs and research statements, reviewers will have to follow the links to these provided by the submission XML via SEER. This is a dubious benefit in any case as the reviewers will likely come to rely upon links to RODAs provided by SEER, as these will be presented consistently, rather than links in metadata pages.
