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Comment: Details on how to tweak individual item permissions

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  • DSpace's "Batch Metadata Editing" tool allows you to export sets of DSpace Item Metadata (all Items or just those in specific Communities/Collections) into a CSV file.  The metadata values/fields in the CSV file can then be edited using Microsoft Excel (or OpenOffice Calc).  Once editing is complete, you can re-import the modified CSV to apply the metadata changes into DSpace.
  • Step-by-step Tutorials:
  • How-To: Batch Metadata Editing basics
    • Batch Metadata Editing can be performed at a Community or Collection level
    • Browse to a specific Community or Collection. The "Context" menu will display an option for "Export Metadata".
    • Click "Export Metadata".  This will generate a CSV file that contains all the metadata for every Item within that Community or Collection hierarchy. 
      • WARNING: For extremely large communities or collections the export (and import) processes may take a long time (or cause your site to significantly slow down). Therefore, DSpaceDirect currently only allows you to modify 500 Items (i.e. lines in CSV) at a single time.  This 500 item limitation can be increased as needed, but it is not recommended (as it can cause performance issues with your site when using these tools).
    • Edit the CSV using either Microsoft Excel or OpenOffice Calc
      • EXCEL WARNING: By default, Excel will not open a CSV in Unicode/UTF-8 encoding. This means that special characters may be improperly displayed and also can be "corrupted" during re-import of the CSV.
        • You need to tell Excel this CSV is Unicode, by importing it as follows:
          • Open Excel (with an empty sheet open)
          • Select "Data" tab
          • Click "From Text" button (in the "External Data" section)
          • Select your CSV file
          • Wizard Step 1
            • Choose "Delimited" option
            • In the "File origin" selectbox, select "65001 : Unicode (UTF-8)"
            • Click Next
          • Wizard Step 2
            • Select "Comma" as the only delimiter
            • Click Next
          • Wizard Step 3
            • Select "Text" as the "Column data format"
            • Click Finish
    • Perform your edits. Once finished, re-upload the changes to DSpace.
      • You can remove entire columns from the spreadsheet to make it easier to concentrate on editing just a few metadata fields. But, the 'id' (first) column MUST be kept.  
        • Removing an entire column with not delete that metadata (rather DSpace will just ignore it). However, please be careful to remove the ENTIRE column (including the column header). Metadata values are only deleted if you leave the column header in place but clear out one or more values (rows in a column)
      • Many more editing tips are available via the tutorials linked above.
    • Click "Import Metadata" (under "Administrative" menu)
    • Select the CSV
    • Review the changes and save the changes.
      • WARNING: Please make certain that the changes displayed on the Review screen look correct.  Once you save, you will be unable to "undo" the changes without either re-editing to metadata (or if you deleted something entirely it may need to
    • NOTE: A more detailed walkthrough with screenshots of this entire process (and additional hints) is available in the Batch Metadata Editing tutorials linked above

Individual Item Permission Changes

  • DSpace allows you to modify the permissions on any Item at any time.  This may be useful if an item needs to be access restricted at a later date, or was accidentally deposited as restricted but needs to be made openly available.
    • NOTE: You can also perform batch/bulk permissions changes (for all Items in a single Collection). More information on that can be found below in the section "Bulk/Batch Permissions Changes (Advanced)"
  • How-to: Change Permissions on a single Item
    • Login to your site as an Administrator
    • Locate the Item whose permissions you wish to change
    • Click "Edit this Item" in the "Context" side menu
    • On the "Item Status" tab, click "Authorizations".  This will bring you to a "Policies" page which details the current permissions on this Item.
    • Overview of the "Policies" page:
      • You'll see a listing of all current policies/permissions on the Item, along with all its associated files (called "bitstreams")
      • Types of Policies:
        • Item Policies - These policies define the permissions on the Item's metadata. In other words, they define who can locate the Item via the DSpace browse & search tools. If the "Item Policies" are limited to a specific Group, then ONLY users who belong to that Group will be able to search/browse to locate that Item.
          • Please note: restricting access to an Item's metadata also means that search engines like Google or Google Scholar will NOT be able to index the Item. That means the Item will NEVER appear in Google or Google Scholar search results.  If you want an Item to appear in Google search results, but do not want everyone to be able to download its file(s) then you should leave the Item policies as unrestricted, while restricting access to individual files (Bitstreams). See below for more info.
        • Bundle Policies ("Policies for Bundle ___") - These policies define permissions across a "Bundle" (loose grouping) of Files.  Bundles in DSpace are mostly "hidden" from users, but they include "ORIGINAL" (the originally uploaded files), "LICENSE" (a copy of any deposit licenses), "TEXT" (optionally, the extracted plain text from originally uploaded files).  Generally speaking, the Bundle permissions here should really just be identical to the permissions you wish to set on the various Files (Bitstreams).
        • Bitstream Policies ("Bitstream __") - These policies define permissions on individual Files (called Bitstreams).  The "READ" permission lets users view/download the specific files in question.
        • NOTE: Administrators can ALWAYS access/edit all Items in the system, no matter what policies are set on the Item or its individual Bitstreams.
      • Action types:
        • "READ" permissions gives a single group the ability to view or download the Item
        • "WRITE" permissions gives a single group the ability to edit or modify the Item
      • Sample Policies:
        • An Item Policy that provides "READ" access for "Anonymous" group.  This policy will allow anyone in the world to access the metadata for this specific Item.  It means that anyone will be able to search/browse for this Item in DSpace (and search engines like Google or Google Scholar will be able to index this Item, so anyone will also be able to find it within Google)
        • An Item Policy that provides "READ" access for only the "On Campus Users" group.  This policy will only allow users who belong to the "On Campus Users" group to browse or search for this Item within DSpace.  This means that all other users will NOT be able to locate this Item within DSpace.  It also means that search engines like Google or Google Scholar will also NOT be able to locate the item (as they will not have access to the Item's metadata).
        • A Bitstream Policy that provides "READ" access for "Anonymous" group. This policy will allow anyone in the world to view or download that particular file (bitstream).  (Please note however that users will be UNABLE to search/browse for the link to the file unless the Item Policy also provides READ access for the Anonymous group.)
        • A Bitstream Policy that provides "READ" access for only the "On Campus Users" group. This policy will only allow users who belong to the "On Campus Users" group to view or download that particular file (bitstream).  (Please note however that users will be UNABLE to search/browse for the link to the file unless the Item Policy also provides READ access for either the "On Campus Users" group OR the "Anonymous" group.)
      • Sample Use Cases:
        • You want an Item to be searchable/browseable publicly and its file(s) to be viewable/downloadable to anyone in the world
          • Set ALL policies to "READ" access for "Anonymous" group
        • You want an Item to be searchable/browseable publicly, but its file(s) should ONLY be viewable/downloadable by members of the "On Campus Users" group
          • Set the Item Policy to be "READ" access for "Anonymous" group
          • Set all Bundle/Bitstream Policies to be "READ" access ONLY for the "On Campus Users" group
        • You want an Item to be only searchable/browseable/downloadable by members of the "On Campus Users" group  (WARNING: In this scenario, the Item will also NEVER appear in Google or Google Scholar as that particular Item is essentially "invisible" to all users except for those in the "On Campus Users" group)
          • Set ALL policies to "READ" access for ONLY the "On Campus Users" group

Bulk/Batch Permissions Changes (Advanced)

  • 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.

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