System Set-up

At this phase of your repository project, it is assumed that you have selected software, whether open source or a vendor product, and made fundamental decisions about whether you are hosting the software for your system or contracting for a hosted environment with a vendor. There are many different ways to approach the situation. For example, in North Carolina, the North Carolina Community College System contracted with a the state's Office of Information Technology Services (http://www.its.state.nc.us/Default.asp) to host their repository, resulting in substantial cost savings. In Florida, the Florida Distance Learning Consortium purchased the servers and contracted for hosting with the College Center for Library Automation (CCLA), (http://www.cclaflorida.org). CCLA manages the community college library system and was able to offer 24 x 7 x 365 technical support for the hardware system at a reasonable cost. The Kentucky Postsecondary Commission contracted with another state to host their pilot implementation for two years.

If you are hosting the software on your own servers, the vendor, in conjunction with your system administrator has recommended server configuration and the operating systems. Based on those decisions and an analysis of anticipated users and use, you should have already selected and ordered repository hardware and software, and this should have been delivered to selected system administrators and loaded for configuration and testing.

Before you can launch the repository, you may want some basic customizations at startup. This is where you will set up the software to reflect the decisions reached during the planning process, so be sure to consult the output from the relevant workgroups when implementing customizations. For example, the system will need to be set-up to accommodate your chosen metadata schema and to facilitate your workflow process.

Here are some customization questions to consider.

1. Are you applying a logo to the repository?
2. What information should appear on the front page?
3. How do you access the repository and from where?
   1. Will there be integration from within one or many learning management system(s) (LMS)?
   2. Will users login separately?
4. Stand Alone User Accounts (when not integrating the repository into the LMS)
   1. How are user names setup?
      1. Last name_first name
      2. First initial_last name
      3. E-mail address
5. Will there be a guest account access?
6. Will you be using any virtual workflows within the repository software to accomplish quality reviews?0
   1. If so, is there a need to create multiple or branching workflows?
   2. Does the software support the level of workflows you need?
7. Metadata
   1. Based on your planning, are there specific metadata fields to be setup?
   2. Are you incorporating “controlled vocabularies” into the metadata collection system? If so, investigate how those will be added to the system and who can do the work.
8. Content organization
   1. Will you create one large collection of content or will there be multiple collections? If there are multiple collections, how will these organized, made visible, and accessed?
   2. Will there be any content that is restricted to your state, or other groups, due to licensing?
   3. What parameters/policies govern the creation of collections? For example, are defined groups allowed to have their own collections?

Remember, that based on your product assessment during the software selection process, you should have a basic idea of how the software will function and what customizations are required. The answers to the questions above will impact the configuration of the repository, and will need to be communicated to whichever consultant or staff member is setting up the repository software.

As with any product there will be upgrades and possible repairs. Establish regular downtimes and specify how you will notify and communicate with your administrators and users about downtimes. Having a scheduled time each month when the repository will be offline allows support staff to schedule maintenance, upgrades, or troubleshoot -- with minimal disruption to your users. Specify how you will communicate with users and administrators when there is no need for regularly scheduled maintenance.