This is the July 2017 edition of the Fedora Newsletter. This newsletter summarizes the most significant activities within the Fedora community over the last month.
Call for Action
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.
Fedora and Samvera Camp UK
DuraSpace and Data Curation Experts are pleased to invite you to attend the Fedora and Samvera (formerly Hydra) Camp at Oxford University, Sept 4 - 8, 2017. The camp will be hosted by Oxford University and is supported by Jisc. Previous Fedora Camps include the inaugural camp held at Duke University, the West Coast camp at CalTech, and the most recent, NYC camp held at Columbia University. Hydra Camps have been held throughout the US and in the UK and the Republic of Ireland. Most recently, DCE hosted the inaugural Advanced Hydra Camp focusing on advanced Hydra developer skills.
The camp curriculum has been published, and registration is limited to the first 40 applicants so register here soon! An early bird discount is available until July 10.
Fedora Camp Texas
We are pleased to announce that Fedora Camp Texas, co-hosted by Texas Digital Library and the University of Texas Libraries, will be offered at the University of Texas at Austin's Perry-Castañeda Library in Austin October 16-18, 2017. Training will begin with the basics and build toward more advanced concepts–no prior Fedora experience is required. Participants can expect to come away with a deep dive Fedora learning experience coupled with multiple opportunities for applying hands-on techniques working with experienced trainers and Fedora gurus.
The camp curriculum has been posted - register today and join us in Austin! An early bird rate is available until August 14 and attendance is limited to the first 40 registrants. Local accommodations are available at a reduced rate.
Software development
Standards
Fedora API Specification
The Fedora community is working to establish a clearly defined specification for the core Fedora services. This specification details the exact services and interactions required for a server implementation to be verified as "doing Fedora".
The draft specification has been published and is looking for community comments. Following this round of input, we plan on an initial public working draft of the specification later this month.
Community-driven Activity
Fedora 4 in Production
Deploying Fedora 4, or Migrating from Fedora 3 to Fedora 4 is a challenge with built-in rewards. This series of articles, “Fedora 4 in Production” looks into why and how community members are working with Fedora 4 to enhance both collections and workflow at their institutions. In this second article, Allen Flynn, Research Analyst and Technology Lead at the University of Michigan Medical School, describes Fedora 4 development of the Knowledge Grid, an open repository of digital knowledge objects aimed at keeping health information accessible and safe at the University of Michigan Medical School and beyond.
The first article in the series features Dan Coughlin, IT Manager, Digital Scholarship and Repository Development, Penn State Libraries, who describes Fedora 4 in production at Penn State ScholarSphere.
Fedora Contributor Profiles
The Fedora project relies on many individuals and institutions to ensure the project's success. We are grateful for their commitment and will showcase their contributions in a series of community profiles aimed at recognizing our contributors’ achievements, and introducing them to the rest of the community. The fourth article in the series features Aaron Birkland from Johns Hopkins University, who has been a contributor to Fedora since the early days of Fedora 2. His focus is currently on the Fedora API-X Extension Architecture Project that will extend the native functionality of a Fedora 4 repository.The full article is available on the DuraSpace website
The third article in the series features Nick Ruest from York University, a long-time contributor to the Fedora and Islandora projects. His focus is on Fedora development as it relates to web archiving issues. The full article can be found on the DuraSpace website.
Import/Export Tooling
One of the design goals of Fedora is to simplify the process of both getting your resources into and out of Fedora in a standardized way. This enables the reuse of Fedora resources in other contexts, such as exporting to a separate preservation system, as well as provides a pathway for migrating across Fedora installations. This design goal is being met by an external Import/Export tool that supports transacting in RDF and (optionally) BagIt bags.
We have just completed the fourth sprint for the import/export utility, which now supports a broader range of scenarios including:
- Lossless import/export of Fedora resources and all other resources associated by user-provided predicates as outbound relationships (e.g. pcdm:hasMember) or inbound relationships (e.g. pcdm:memberOf)
- Export of Fedora versions
- Export from a Fedora deployed on a given host/port followed by import into another Fedora on a different host/port
Additionally, the related Import/Export Verification tool which is designed to provide assurance that exports from or imports to Fedora were complete and successful is approaching its next milestone release.
A new release of the import/export utility including these improvements will be available soon. If you would like to participate as developer, tester, or to write documentation, please contact Andrew Woods.
API-X
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 .
VIVO Conference
The annual VIVO conference brings together users, managers and developers from around the world to share the latest developments in semantic web academic profiles. Whether an experienced user, or just starting out, this is the event to attend. This year's conference will feature a workshop on Fedora and a session on integrating VIVO with Fedora. Spaces are limited so please register in advance!
