Guides and FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

• End User FAQ - Attempts to address the most commonly asked questions regarding DSpace (from a user perspective)
• TechnicalFAQ - Attempts to address the most commonly asked technical or installation questions regarding DSpace
• Additional resources for common questions:
  • Searching the Mailing Lists archives
  • Searching the dspace tag on StackOverflow. Also see our Guide to Posting Technical Questions to StackOverflow

Repository Planning

• The following documents are useful in planning a repository. All are written by Mary R.Barton et al copyright 2004-2005 (RM). 
  
  • LEADIRS Creating an Institutional Repository
  • Creating a Service Model
  • Project Planning Matrix
• SUNScholar/Practical Guidelines for Starting an Institutional Repository. Produced by Stellenbosch University Library, this guide provides step-by-step information to help academic institutions in developing countries start an institutional repository.
• Lessons learned building an Institutional Repository with DSpace

Installing DSpace

• Start with the DSpace Documentation.
• Platform and distribution-specific tips and guides can be found on the DSpace Installation Guides page.
• en español: Instalación de Dspace:  Deploy de un repositorio básico con Dspace 3.0   

Customizing DSpace

• Past Training Materials & Workshops:
  • DSpace Training Archives - This is our primary archive of past workshop/webinar materials. 
  • DuraSpace webinar archive, DuraSpace Slideshare - additional workshops/webinars hosted by DSpace
  • DSpace YouTube - Some DSpace related videos (and past meetings/summaries)
• General Tips:
  • How-To Guides has a list of all wiki pages which provide "how-to" hints for changing/customizing your DSpace install.
  • Build Cookbook has examples of adding your local changes to a DSpace distribution.
• Additional training in spanish: Curso de capacitación en repositorios y DSpace   by SeDiCi, Universidad de la Plata, Argentina

Developing with DSpace

• An overall reference for developing code with DSpace (and creating patches) is available on the Developer Guidelines and Tools page.
• Code Contribution Guidelines - How to get your code accepted into DSpace.

Documentation for New DSpace Administrators

• Intro to DSpace (August 19, 2009) - written by Cameron Kainerstorfer and Heather Perkins (both of University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center)
• The DSpace Course (August 2008) - written by Stuart Lewis and Chris Yates, funded by JISC and Repositories Support Project and was funded by JISC  
• Instructions for New Admin - This is a simple guide to print off for people who will start uploading documents to your instance of DSpace, by Shawna Sadler.

DSpace Oracle to PostgreSQL migration

The following procedure is only one example of migration done from Version 6.3 to Version 7.2.

It has been made using Ora2pg: https://ora2pg.darold.net/documentation.html

1. Install PERL: http://strawberryperl.com/
2. Download Ora2Pg: https://sourceforge.net/projects/ora2pg/
   • Unzip and access the file from the command line
3. Install Ora2Pg :
   perl Makefile.PL
   gmake && gmake install
   
   
4. ora2pg files will be installed in Strawberry directory
   • C:\Strawberry\perl\site\bin
   • C:\ora2pg
     Note : Do not use another path for Ora2Pg, otherwise configuration will not be made correctly in Strawberry Perl.
5. Rename file « C:\ora2pg\ora2pg_conf.dist » en « ora2pg.conf »
   1. Modify variable ORACLE_HOME to point to Oracle client
   2. Modify string connexion to Oracle DB :
      1. User/Password
      2. ORACLE_DSN, ORACLE_USER, ORACLE_PWD
   3. TYPE = TABLE,SEQUENCE,INSERT
   4. UUID_FUNCTION = gen_random_uuid
   5. STOP_ON_ERROR = 0
   6. FKEY_DEFERRABLE = 1
   7. DEFER_FKEY = 1
   8. MODIFY_TYPE 
      bitstream:size_bytes:bigint,checksum_history:check_id:bigint,checksum_history:checksum_expected:varchar,checksum_history:checksum_calculated:varchar,checksum_history:result:varchar,checksum_results:result_code:varchar,checksum_results:result_description:varchar,harvested_collection:oai_source:varchar,harvested_collection:oai_set_id:varchar,harvested_collection:harvest_message:varchar,harvested_collection:metadata_config_id:varchar,harvested_collection:harvest_start_time:timestamp with time zone,harvested_collection:last_harvested:timestamp with time zone,harvested_item:last_harvested:timestamp with time zone,harvested_item:oai_id:varchar,item:last_modified:timestamp with time zone,metadatavalue:text_lang:varchar(24),most_recent_checksum:expected_checksum:varchar,most_recent_checksum:current_checksum:varchar,most_recent_checksum:checksum_algorithm:varchar,most_recent_checksum:result:varchar,resourcepolicy:start_date:date,resourcepolicy:end_date:date,webapp:url:varchar,webapp:isui:integer
   9. REPLACE_AS_BOOLEAN NUMBER:1 CHAR:1
   10. DATA_TYPE NUMBER(*\,0):integer,VARCHAR2(2000):text
   11. SCHEMA DSPACE

Data migration procedure :

1. Open command line and move to following directory:
   C:\Strawberry\perl\site\bin.
2. Execute command line ora2pg to launch migration script from Oracle to SQL files for PostgresSQL objects creation.
3. Create a database on PostgreSQL server
   1. Use extension « pgcrypto »