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Under the "Administrative" menu, there are tools to add individual EPeople & Groups (which can then be used in Community or Collection "Roles").
How-To: Add a New EPerson (as an Administrator)
- Click on "People" -> "Click here to add a new E-Person."
  - Email (Both the user's email address and also their username)
  - Name (First & Last)
  - Telephone (optional, only available to Administrators)
  - (Other fields not necessary to fill out)
- Find the newly created user & Click on it
  - Press the "Reset Password" button. An email will now be sent to the user's email address, which lets them setup a password in DSpace.
How-To: Register a New Account
- Logout of system
- Click on "Login" link
- There's a link to "Register" as a new user. This lets anyone setup an account with your DSpace. However, new accounts will not have any special permissions until you give their account special permissions. (So, even if a user sets up an account, they won't be able to do anything in your system until you allow them to.)
- NOTE: If you are using LDAP or Shibboleth with DSpace, new user accounts will be automatically created the first time a user logs into DSpace via LDAP/Shibboleth. So, once they login, a DSpace E-Person will be automatically created which is associated with their LDAP/Shibboleth account.
How-To: Add a New Group (as an Administrator)
- INFO: Groups can be used to manage permissions across several individuals. You can choose to create as many (or as few) groups as you wish to help you manage DSpace permissions.
  - Synchronizing Groups with Shibboleth or LDAP: If you are using Shibboleth or LDAP, you can ask DuraSpace LYRASIS to setup a mapping between Shibboleth Groups (i.e. IdP Roles) or LDAP Groups (i.e. LDAP Organization Units or "OU") and internal DSpace Groups. This provides an automated way to "sync" group membership between an external system (LDAP or Shibboleth) and DSpace's internal Groups. DSpace does NOT do this mapping automatically. It needs to be configured (by DuraSpaceLYRASIS) for specific Groups.
- Login as an Administrator
- Click on "Groups" -> "Click here to add a new Group."
  - Name (Each group needs to have a name. Names can include spaces, so name it something that describes the group. E.g. "Mathematics Department" or "Staff" or similar
  - Add members to the group. Groups can contain individual EPeople or other Groups.
- Click Save.
- HINT: You'll notice in the Group listing a lot of groups named "COLLECTION_" or "COMMUNITY_". These groups are internal groups that DSpace creates for different Collection or Community Roles. They are essentially "special" groups which are directly associated with a particular role in a particular Colllection Collection or Community. (These special groups are also accessible when editing roles on Communities & Collections – see above).
Once you have created user accounts (E-People) and Groups, you can use those to assign permissions within specific DSpace Communities or Collections (see the "Assign Roles" tab when editing a Community/Collection).
- In addition, by adding EPeople or Groups to the DSpace "Administrator" group you can give users Site-wide Administrator permissions (add/edit/delete anything in the system).

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DSpaceDirect supports two primary types of usage statistics:
- Google Analytics (if enabled) - DSpace can use Google Analytics to track page views/accesses with the system. This is similar to using Google Analytics to tracking any other website. The use of Google Analytics is recommended. Google Analytics more thoroughly weeds out spider and bot activity, resulting in more accurate statistics.
- DSpace Internal Statistics - DSpace also tracks its own basic Usage, Workflow & Search statistics.
DSpace Statistics are available site-wide, or on any specific Community, Collection or Item page. Based on where you are in the system, you will receive a slightly different statistical report.
NOTE: By default, DSpace Internal Statistics are ONLY available to Administrators. If you desire, DuraSpace can instead make them publicly available for your site. Unfortunately, at this time, there are only two options: private (Admin only) or public.
How-To: View Site-Wide DSpace Statistics
- Browse to the homepage (logged in as an Admin)
- Notice the "Statistics" box has three options:
  - DSpace Usage Statistics: At the homepage level, this gives a general count of "hits" for individual Items in the system. The report is extremely basic at this time and only lists the title of the Item.
  - DSpace Search Statistics: At the homepage level, this provides a summary of recent searches performed via the DSpace search box. There are also some historical reporting options.
  - DSpace Workflow Statistics: At the homepage level, this provides a general count of any approval workflows/reviews that have taken place. There are also some historical reporting options. NOTE: If you do not use Workflow Reviewer Roles on any Collections, this report will always be empty.)
How-To: View DSpace Community/Collection Statistics
- Browse to a specific Community or Collection
- The "Statistics" box has the same three options, but now the results will be specific to this Community/Collection (and provide extra details)
  - DSpace Usage Statistics: At the Community/Collection level, this report provides extra detail about accesses of this Community/Collection page. You'll now get a summary of total hits to the Community/Collection homepage, along with monthly trends, and top countries/cities (where the hits are coming from)
  - DSpace Search Statistics: At the Community/Collection level, this provides a summary of recent searches performed via the DSpace search box (specific to this Community or Collection).
  - DSpace Workflow Statistics: At the Community/Collection level, this provides a general count of any approval workflows/reviews that have taken place (specific to this Community or Collection) (NOTE: If you do not use Workflow Reviewer Roles on any Collections, this report will always be empty.)
How-To: View DSpace Item Statistics
- Browse to a specific Item
- The "Statistics" box has just one option, but now the results will be specific to this Item (and provide extra details)
  - DSpace Usage Statistics: At the Item level, this report provides extra detail about usage of the Item. You'll now get a summary of total hits to the Community/Collection homepage, along with monthly trends, number of file downloads and top countries/cities (where the hits are coming from)
  - NOTE: Items do not have Search/Workflow statistics as both of those statistical reports are only applicable to Communities & Collections.
How-To: View/Analyze Page Visits (hits) in Google Analytics
- In Google Analytics, this info is under the "Behavior -> Site Content -> All Pages" section. It should allow you to easily see the top pages visited, and filter that list based on a page name or path.
- For example, to analyze the number of visits/hits on a single item's homepage (i.e the number of people who viewed the item metadata) ..
  - Either filter this list by putting in the URL of the item page into the searchbox
  - OR, click on "Page Title" as the "Primary Dimension" and put the title of the Item into the searchbox
How-To: View/Analyze File Downloads in Google Analytics
- File downloads are recorded as "events" in Google Analytics. So, this info is under the "Behavior -> Events -> Pages" section. By default it'll show the top URLs used to download Items, but it also provides ways to filter that information based on page name or URL.
- For example, to analyze the number of file downloads for a single item (even if it has multiple files)
  - Either filter this list by putting in the URL of the item into the searchbox,
  - OR, click on "Page Title" as the "Primary Dimension" and put the title of the Item into the searchbox
  - In the results, clicking on the title will bring you to a page that lists downloads per file (if the item has multiple files)
How-To: View Total Number of Items in a Repository
- The total number of items in the repository is most easily found by navigating to Browse by Title, as title is a required field.
How-To: View the Number of Items Added in a Year
- Unfortunately, the built-in DSpace statistics and Google Analytics do not list this data. The easiest way to determine the number of items added in a given time frame is to export the repository metadata to CSV, and look at the dc.date.accessioned in that export. The dcThe dc.date.accessioned field is not included by default in metadata exports from DSpaceDirect repositories; please contact support@dspacedirectcontact dspacedirect@lyrasis.org if you would like to be able to export this field.

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DSpace provides an "Advanced Policy Manager" (also known as the "item wildcard policy admin tool"), which allows an Administrative user to perform bulk permissions changes to all of the Items or Files (bitstreams) within a specified Collection.
- For more information on permissions / policy settings in general, please also refer to the section "Individual Item Permissions Changes" above.
WARNING: This Advanced Policy Manager is a bit of a "beta-level" tool. It works, but it's not the most user friendly page in DSpace. It's also not the smartest tool, so you need to sometimes take several steps to make the changes you want to make.
How-To: Batch Permissions Changes basics
- Sample Use Case: The easiest way to explain how this tool works is via a common use-case. Suppose that you have a Collection of open access (viewable/readable to anyone in the world) Items which you now want to restrict to only be viewable to a group of users called "On Campus Users". Here's the steps you would take to perform that change:
  - Login to your site as an Administrator
  - Under the "Administrative" side menu, click on "Authorizations" (under Access Control submenu)
  - Just under the box at the top of the page, click the link that says "Click here to go to the item wildcard policy admin tool"
  - Step 1: Remove existing metadata access rights for all Items in the specified Collection. To do so, fill out the form as follows:
    - Description: (optional, usually is left blank as it's only really useful for bulk changes to embargo)
    - Group: (leave blank in this case as you will remove any existing permissions)
    - Action: READ (you want to remove "READ" access)
    - Content Type: Item (you want to remove READ access on an Item level – this controls metadata access)
    - Collection: [select the collection]
    - Start Date: (leave blank - this is only useful for bulk-changes to embargo dates)
    - End Date: (leave blank - this is only useful for bulk-changes to embargo dates)
    - CLICK the "Clear Policies" button
    - (NOTE: Even though you get no confirmation screen, the changes will be immediately applied)
  - In Step #1, essentially all we've done is remove access to the Item metadata. The metadata is now only visible (readable) by Administrators. However, the content files within those Items are unfortunately still accessible (if someone had bookmarked the URL)
  - Step 2: Remove existing content file access rights for all Items in the specified Collection. To do so, fill out the form as follows:
    - Description: (optional, usually is left blank as it's only really useful for bulk changes to embargo)
    - Group: (leave blank in this case as you will remove any existing permissions)
    - Action: READ (you want to remove "READ" access)
    - Content Type: bitstream (you want to remove READ access on the files, or bitstreams)
    - Collection: [select the collection]
    - Start Date: (leave blank - this is only useful for bulk-changes to embargo dates)
    - End Date: (leave blank - this is only useful for bulk-changes to embargo dates)
    - CLICK the "Clear Policies" button
    - (NOTE: Even though you get no confirmation screen, the changes will be immediately applied)
  - In Step #2, we've also removed access to the Item files. This means that only Administrators can now access/download any files associated with the Items. Now, we need to assign NEW permissions for our "On Campus Users" group in the following two steps.
  - Step 3: Give the "On Campus Users" group access to all metadata for all Items in the specified Collection. To do so, fill out the form as follows:
    - Description: (optional, usually is left blank as it's only really useful for bulk changes to embargo)
    - Group: Select the "On Campus Users" group
    - Action: READ (you want to add "READ" access to the selected group)
    - Content Type: item (you want to add READ access on Items)
    - Collection: [select the collection]
    - Start Date: (leave blank - this is only useful for bulk-changes to embargo dates)
    - End Date: (leave blank - this is only useful for bulk-changes to embargo dates)
    - CLICK the "Add Policies" button
    - (NOTE: Even though you get no confirmation screen, the changes will be immediately applied)
  - In Step #3, we've now given the "On Campus Users" group the ability to read the metadata for all Items in this collection. So, the final step is to also give them the ability to read/download files associated with these Items.
  - Step 4: Finally, give the "On Campus Users" group access to all files for all Items in the specified Collection. To do so, fill out the form as follows:
    - Description: (optional, usually is left blank as it's only really useful for bulk changes to embargo)
    - Group: Select the "On Campus Users" group
    - Action: READ (you want to add "READ" access to the selected group)
    - Content Type: bitstream (you want to add READ access on all files, or bitstreams)
    - Collection: [select the collection]
    - Start Date: (leave blank - this is only useful for bulk-changes to embargo dates)
    - End Date: (leave blank - this is only useful for bulk-changes to embargo dates)
    - CLICK the "Add Policies" button
    - (NOTE: Even though you get no confirmation screen, the changes will be immediately applied)
  - At the end of this process, all the Items (and their Files) in the selected Collection will now only be accessible to users who belong to your "On Campus Users" group. Other non-Administrative users will be presented with an Access Restricted message.

Checking Item Links

BasicLinkChecker

DSpace provides a Basic Link Checker as part of the system Curation Tasks. This can be used for small collections as follows:

Login as a DSpace Administrator
Under the Administrative menu, select Curation Tasks
Enter the Handle of the Community, Collection, or Item to check
Select "Check Links in Metadata" in the Task menu and choose Perform.

As noted above, this will work fine for individual items or small collections. Larger collections will likely take too long to run and will result in an error.

Checking with Exported Metadata

Links can be checked by exporting the site metadata and using an external process to verify links. An example of an external process using Google Sheets follows

First, export the metadata to be checked
- Login as a DSpace Administrator
- Select the Community or Collection to be checked
- In the Context menu select "Export Metadata" and save the resulting CSV file

Links can be checked using Google Sheets and a simple script

Open Google Drive and drag the CSV file into an appropriate folder (this uploads the file)
Right-click on the file and select "Open with > Google Sheets"
Find the metadata column with links to be checked (often this is dc.identifier.uri[]). You may choose to hide other columns to simplify the view.
Select Tools → Script Editor

Replace the default script with this code:

Code Block

function getStatusCodes(urlset){
  if('' == urlset) {
    return '';
  }
  
  var urls = urlset.split("||");  
  var responseCodes = [];
   
  for (var i=0; i<urls.length; i++){
    var responseCode = getStatusCode(urls[i]);
    responseCodes.push(responseCode);
  }

  return responseCodes.join();
}

function getStatusCode(url) {
  var options = {
    'muteHttpExceptions': true,
  };
  
  var response = UrlFetchApp.fetch(url.trim(), options);
  return response.getResponseCode();
}

This code includes two functions. The getStatusCodes function expects an array (list) of URLs to check. The getStatusCode function expects only a single URL. Which of these you use depend on whether the metadata column you need to check has one URL or multiple URLs in each row. If in doubt, use getStatusCodes, as it will work for one or more URLs.

Save the script with File → Save
- You may be asked by Google to provide permissions to access your spreadsheet at this point. You will need to grant these permissions.
Back on your Google Sheets file, select an empty column that will be used for script results. On the first row with data (usually row 2) add this to the cell, replacing "Y2" with the cell ID where the URL to be checked can be found, then hitting enter. (This is also where you can choose to use the getStatusCode function rather than getStatusCodes.)
Code Block
=getStatusCodes(Y2)
The result posted in the cell should provide an HTTP response code. The success code is 200. A code of 404 means the page cannot be found. Other response codes are listed here: https://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec10.html. If something else goes wrong with the request you may see an error listed here.
Assuming this works properly for the first row, you can apply the function to all rows by either:
- Selecting the cell where you placed the function, selecting the small box in the bottom right corner of the cell and dragging it down to all other cells
- Or, selecting the cell where you placed the function, copying it (Edit → Copy), then selecting all rows in the column and pasting (Edit → Paste). This method works better if the number of rows is large.
Once you have a response code (or multiple response codes if there are multiple URLs) in each row you will be able to review the results looking for non-200 codes that may need further investigation.

DSpaceDirect Resources

DSpace Resources

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Checking Item Links