This is the October 2019 edition of the Fedora Newsletter. This newsletter summarizes the most significant activities within the Fedora community over the last month.
News
First Fedora 6 Code Sprint Concluded
The first code sprint to develop Fedora 6 ran from September 16-27 with thirteen participants:
- Danny Bernstein, LYRASIS
- Andrew Woods, LYRASIS
- Ben Pennell, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
- Peter Eichman, University of Maryland
- Jared Whiklo, University of Manitoba
- Mohamed Mohideen Abdul Rasheed, University of Maryland
- Aaron Birkland, Johns Hopkins University
- Youn Noh, Yale University
- Dan Field, National Library of Wales
- Jenny A'Brook, National Library of Wales
- Richard Williams, National Library of Wales
- Michal Dulinski, National Library of Wales
- Remigiusz Malessa, National Library of Wales
The sprint had two primary goals:
- Implement basic resource management for Containers and Binaries in accordance with Oxford Common File Layout persistence
- Demonstrate a basic Fedora 3 to OCFL conversion using migration-utils and the OCFL client developed by Peter Winckles at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
Two teams were established to pursue each of these goals in parallel. The resource management team spent much of the first week engaged in detailed discussions on how to map Fedora’s resource management functionality to the OCFL, which led to a number of open questions that were answered over the course of the sprint. This team now has a clear path forward that they can follow in the next sprint in November.
The migration team members were relatively new to Fedora development, so this sprint served as an opportunity to get up to speed with the technology, development practices, and tools. The Fedora technical team facilitated this onboarding by assigning discrete tasks and guiding the new participants through the code review process. The updated migration-utils can now migrate Fedora 3 resources to an OCFL-compliant structure; the next step will be to align this structure with the expectations of Fedora 6.
By the conclusion of the sprint, the teams had finalized the design work and gotten a good start on implementation. This will set up the next sprint in November, which will focus more on implementation with a goal of producing a functional Fedora 6 prototype by the end of 2019.
Upcoming Webinar: Islandora 8 and Research Data Management at UPEI
The University of Prince Edward Island, birthplace of Islandora, is working on a CANARIE-funded project to create a Research Data Management (RDM) platform that utilizes and extends Islandora 8.
Still a work-in-progress, the project team will join the Islandora Foundation on November 7th for a public webinar to share and demonstrate aspects of the current iteration of the RDM platform. Register online to attend.
Oxford Common File Layout
The latest OCFL community meeting took place on September 11. Notes and audio from the call are available online. Highlights include feedback on the beta release, discussion about the Fedora 6 implementation of OCFL, and optimizing the inventory.json file. The next community call will take place on October 9.
Conferences and events
In an attempt to simplify the task of keeping up with Fedora-related meetings and events, a Fedora calendar is available to the community as HTML and iCal .
If you have not already joined the fedora-project Slack workspace please start by visiting the self-registration form. Come join the conversation!
Islandoracon
Islandoracon will be held October 7-11 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The main conference will be hosted by Islandora Foundation Partner Simon Fraser University, at their downtown location in Harbour Centre. Please register in advance to attend.
DLF Forum
The DLF Forum, which takes place October 13-17 in Tampa, FL, welcomes digital library, archives, and museum practitioners from member institutions and beyond—for whom it serves as a meeting place, marketplace, and congress. This year's forum includes several Fedora-related sessions, such as the Designing a Migration Path grant panel, and a presentation on Fedora 6 and the Oxford Common File Layout.
Samvera Connect
This year's Samvera Connect will take place October 22-25 at Washington University in St. Louis. Please register in advance to attend.
Register Your Repository
Is your repository listed in the DuraSpace registry? Help us maintain reliable information on the community of Fedora users around the world by registering your repository today. You can also request an update to an existing entry by selecting your entry and filling out the online form.
Membership
Fedora is funded entirely through the contributions of DuraSpace members that allocate their annual funding to Fedora. This year's membership campaign has a goal of raising $500,000 to fund staff to work on Fedora and provide technical leadership, direct strategic planning, organize community outreach, and coordinate timely software releases. Membership also provides opportunities to participate in project governance and influence the direction of the software. If your institution is not yet a member of DuraSpace in support of Fedora, please join us today!
Get Involved
Fedora is designed, built, used, and supported by the community. An easy and important way that you can contribute to the effort is by helping resolve outstanding bugs. If you have an interest in gaining a better understanding of the Fedora code base, or a specific interest in any of these bugs, please add a comment to a ticket and we can work together to move your interest forward.
