Chapter 12 Comparative Analysis of Software Evaluation Introduction The evaluation of selected candidate software was carried out on different evaluation cri- teria. This chapter deals with the comparative analysis of each software against the set of evaluation criteria under broad and narrow subject categories. Though the objective of the present study is to not compare one software with another and decide the best among all, it is necessary to understand what are the general features supported by each software under broad and narrow subject categories and will help users to glance through different features in a tabular form. This analysis may be helpful to the Library Staff to know which area is more important and which software can be chosen with a given set of environment. In the further sections of this chapter all the narrow criteria which are defined for evaluation of OSS-DL are compared as a comparative table under the broad subject categories. 12.1 Content Acquisition Table 12.1 lists out all content acquisition related criteria in a tabular form. It is found that all selected software support to upload digital documents through Web User Interface except Fedora and Greenstone. Fedora & Greenstone has separate Librarian’s Interface 360
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Chapter 12
Comparative Analysis of SoftwareEvaluation
Introduction
The evaluation of selected candidate software was carried out on different evaluation cri-
teria. This chapter deals with the comparative analysis of each software against the set of
evaluation criteria under broad and narrow subject categories.
Though the objective of the present study is to not compare one software with another
and decide the best among all, it is necessary to understand what are the general features
supported by each software under broad and narrow subject categories and will help users
to glance through different features in a tabular form. Thisanalysis may be helpful to
the Library Staff to know which area is more important and which software can be chosen
with a given set of environment. In the further sections of this chapter all the narrow criteria
which are defined for evaluation of OSS-DL are compared as a comparative table under the
broad subject categories.
12.1 Content Acquisition
Table 12.1 lists out all content acquisition related criteria in a tabular form. It is found
that all selected software support to upload digital documents through Web User Interface
except Fedora and Greenstone. Fedora & Greenstone has separate Librarian’s Interface
360
CHAPTER 12. COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS 361
through which documents can be uploaded into the repository. Duplicate checking of doc-
uments is supported only by EPrints and Greenstone. No othersoftware support duplicate
checking. One of the important feature of CDS-Invenio is it has capability to create bibli-
ographic database as well as has capability to manage digital documents.
EPrints and Fedora has unique capability to upload digital documents from existing URL.
Greenstone software also has this feature but this feature does not work properly with
Greenstone. Importing is handled by all software and all software support to import data if
it is available in XML format. All software have capability to export data into either XML,
DC format, METS, MARC format. Automatic extraction of keywords is at present handled
by only CDS-Invenio. No other software support to extract keywords from metadata or full
texts uploaded into the repository. CDS-Invenio, DoKS & Fedora supports to add different
versions of digital documents which is one of the important feature of digital library. Weed
out policy is at present supported by CDS-Invenio, DSpace, EPrints, Fedora & SOPS.
12.2 Content Management
Table 12.2 lists all evaluation criteria related to contentmanagement. CDS-Inveion &
DSpace software provide a good workflow management. CDS-Invenio can handle com-
plex workflow processess. EPrints, MyCoRe software to some extent provide workflow
management. DoKS and SOPS allow to create only submitters but does not support any
other work flow management such as creating reviewers, metadata reviwers, etc. Fedora &
Greenstone does not have any work flow management. Generating authority files is sup-
ported at present only by DSpace, DoKS, Greenstone & MyCoRe.DSpace & CDS-Invenio
has capabilities to show strength of each collection on web site.
12.3 Metadata Submission and Support
Table 12.3 lists all evaluation criteria related to metadata submission & support in a tabular
form. All the software have capability to upload descriptive, administrative & structural
metadata except SOPS. All software support UTF-8 hence it ispossible to add metadata
in any language. All software have capability to support Dublin Core metadata schema
except SOPS. CDS-Inveion, EPrints, Fedora & Greenstone supports to add metadata other
Software sup-ports to allowto add biblio-graphic dataof books, re-ports, journalsas well as allother types ofdigital mediasuch as text,audio, video,image, dataset files etc.which is oneof the uniquefeature ofCDS-Invenio.
DSpace sup-ports to allowto add all typesof digital docu-ments rangingfrom books,reports, journalarticles, lecturenotes, tech-nical reports,thesis, images,audio/videofiles to datasets.
DoKS supportsto speciallyadd electronicthesis of a stu-dent as well asit supports toadd CurriculumVitae, workexperience,referenceinformation,annotationdetails, Edu-cation etc. ofevery studentalong withthe electronicthesis.
Fedora sup-ports to uploadconventionaldigital ob-jects (such asbooks, othertext docu-ments, learn-ing objects,geospatialdata, im-ages, maps,computerprograms),Complex,Compoundas well asdynamic ob-jects (suchas videos,numerical datasets, their as-sociated codebooks andaudios as well.
Greenstonesupportsto add anytype of doc-uments suchas from books,reports, jour-nal/newspaperarticles, lecturenotes, tech-nical reports,thesis, images,audio/video,visual artfiles as wellas any otherdocuments.
MyCoRe sup-ports to addvariety of doc-ument suchas article,abstract, bibli-ography, book,dataset, pro-gram, thesis,examination,journal, learn-ing material,manual, mu-sic, notes,person infor-mation, picture,preprint, pre-sentation,research pa-per, service,statistical data,video etc.
SOPS sup-ports to addonly electronicpublicationssuch as pa-pers, keynotepapers, shortpapers, ab-stracts, postersetc.
CDS-Invenioallow to de-fine the do-main/scope ofthe digital li-brary for whomit is intendedfor.
DSpace isdesigned forcreating insti-tutional repos-itory of anyorganization.
DoKS is spe-cially meantfor organisingelectronic the-sis/dissertationsfrom any uni-versity.
Software hascapability todefine thedomain of thedigital library.
Fedora doesnot supportto define do-main/scopeof the digitallibrary.
Greenstonehas capabilityto define do-main/scope ofdigital libraryfor whom it isintended for.
MyCoRe hasbeen espe-cially designedfor creatinginstitutionalcontent reposi-tory or archivalsolutions.
SOPS is spe-cially meantfor organis-ing electronicpublications.
MyCoRe sup-ports to uploadall types of fileformats. Bydefault sys-tem supportscollections,dataset, event,image, ser-vice, software,sound, text,unknown,video, etc.
Though SOPSis meant foradding onlyelectronic pub-lications it alsosupports toupload otherfile formats.
CDS-Inveniosupports meta-data/contentimport. Thedata has tobe in MARCXML to MARC 21 or DublinCore format.The metadataand full textshave to beseparatelyimported.
DSpace sup-ports con-tent/metadataimport. Thedata has to bein the DublinCore format.
DoKS sup-ports to importmetadata ifit is availableXML format.DoKS supports to importall folders,users, filefor-mats, scrips,and recordscreated inDoKS.
Software sup-ports to importmetadata ofitems via DOII(via CrossRef),XML, PubMEDID, PubMEDXML formats.
Fedora sup-ports import ofdigital objectsif data is avail-able in XMLformat.
Greenstonesupports im-port of digitalobjects if datais available inXML format.
MyCoRe sup-ports to importdata and datahas to be in theXML format.
SOPS sup-ports to importdata if it isavailable inCSV file formatsuch as Excelor Access.
No global per-sistent identi-fier scheme issupported bythe software.Software hasits own persis-tent ID numberfor all docu-ments that areadded into therepository.
DSpace sup-ports CNRIHandle systemidentifier forall the docu-ments that areadded into therepository.
Software doesnot have anypersistent iden-tifier schemebut it supportsto add anyoher persistentidentifer’s toevery thesisadded into therepository.
EPrints doesnot have anypersistent iden-tifier schemesupport.
Fedora sup-ports URI aswell as sup-ports GDRFregistry as wellas it supportsto add otherpersistentidentifier num-bers as well assuch as handleor DOI etc.
Does system provide easy way foradding/editing of records for Librar-ian as well as for remote user?
Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes
Are supported file formats well docu-mented in the system? Can new fileformats be added in the system?
Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes No No
"Does the repository software haveany access control lists, Internet ad-dress filters etc. that limit who is al-lowed to submit documents into therepository?"
Fedora doesnot have anydefault meta-data entry tem-plate. Softwareimports anyXML basedmetadata.
Software hasdefault meta-data entrytemplates
MyCoRe hassingle meta-data entrytemplate.
Software hasdefault meta-data entrytemplate.
Metadata for-mats are welldocumented inthe software.
Metadata for-mats are welldocumented inthe software.
Metadata for-mats are notdocumented inDoKS.
Metadata for-mats are welldocumented inEPrints.
Metadata for-mats are notdocumented inFedora.
Metadataformats aredocumented inthe system.
Metadataformats aredocumented inthe system.
Metadataformats aredocumented inSOPS.
Software sup-ports differentinterface formetadataentry and cus-tomized datagets added intothe system.
It is possible tocreate differentinterfaces formetadata entryand it can becustomizedto get dataadded into thesystem but itdemands moreknowledgeabout DSpacecoding.
DoKS does notsupport to cre-ate different in-terface for en-tering data.
Software sup-ports to createdifferent inter-face for enter-ing data.
It is not pos-sible to createdifferent inter-faces for enter-ing data.
It is possible tocreate differentinterfaces formetadata entryand softwarehas capa-bility to addcustomizeddata into thesystem.
It is possible tocreate differentinterfaces formetadata entryand softwarehas capa-bility to addcustomizeddata into thesystem.
Software doesnot support dif-ferent interfacefor metadataentry.
There are noways by whichsoftware canverify addeddata.
There areno automatedchecks to verifyadded data.
There areno automatedchecks to verifyadded data.
There areno automatedchecks to verifyadded data.
There areno automatedchecks to verifyadded data.
There areno automatedchecks to verifyadded data.
There areno automatedchecks to verifyadded data.
There areno automatedchecks to verifyadded data.
There are noautomatedchecks for dateentering etc.
There are noautomatedchecks for dateentering etc.
There are noautomatedchecks for dateentering etc.
There are noautomatedchecks for dateentering etc.
There are noautomatedchecks for dateentering etc.
There are noautomatedchecks for dateentering etc.
For date stringthere is auto-mated checkbut for otherfields there areno automatedchecks.
DoKS supportsreal time up-dating and in-dexing of con-tents.
EPrints sup-ports real timeupdating andindexing ofcontents.
Fedora sup-ports real timeupdating andindexing ofcontents.
Greenstonedoes not sup-port real timeupdating andindexing. Forevery itemadded into therepository onehas to rebuildthe collectionwhich is one ofthe drawbackof Greenstone.
Metadata ver-sioning is notsupported inthe software.
Metadata ver-sioning is notsupported inthe software.
Metadata ver-sioning is notsupported inthe software.
Metadata ver-sioning is notsupported inthe software.
Metadata ver-sioning is notsupported inthe software.
Metadata ver-sioning is notsupported inthe software.
Metadata ver-sioning is notsupported inthe software.
Metadata ver-sioning is notsupported inthe software.
Provenancemetadata issupported bythe software.
DSpace sup-ports prove-nance meta-data andfollowing meta-data is added: - Name andemail addressof the submit-ter, uploadingdate and time,number ofbitstreamsuploaded, totalnumber ofbytes of eachbitstream,checksum dataof uploadedbitstream
DoKS doesnot supportprovenancemetadata.
EPrints doesnot supportprovenancemetadata.
Fedora sup-ports to adddifferent infor-mation abouta digital objectsuch as size ofthe file, createdby, total sizeetc.
Greenstonesupports toadd prove-nance meta-data.
MyCoRerecords prove-nance meta-data such asdigital docu-ment createdat and lastchanged withtime and date.
MyCoRe hasfacility to iden-tify file formatssubmitted intothe repository.If the file formatis not identi-fied it uploadsthat file asunknownformat.
There are noways by whichit is possibleto verify sub-mitted file for-mats in SOPS.
While export-ing metadatasoftware doesnot supportchecksums.
While export-ing metadatasoftware doesnot supportchecksums.
While export-ing metadatasoftware doesnot supportchecksums.
While export-ing metadatasoftware doesnot supportchecksums.
While export-ing metadatasoftware doesnot supportchecksums.
While export-ing metadatasoftware doesnot supportchecksums.
While export-ing metadatasoftware doesnot supportchecksums.
Phrase Searching Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes YesProximity Searching Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes YesStemming Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes YesFuzzy Searching Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes YesPhonetic Searching Yes No No No No No No NoCase sensitive orcase insensitivesearching
Yes No No No Yes Yes No No
Term weighting Yes No Yes No Yes Yes No NoSearch history op-tion, reuse of query,query save option
Yes No No No No Yes No No
Boosting the term Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes No NoRange searching Yes No No No No Yes No NoUse of Thesarus No Yes No No No No No NoExpand Search Yes No No No Yes Yes Yes NoLateral Searching No No No No No No No NoSearch support forspecial collections
No No No No No Yes No No
Searching via tableof contents and clas-sification codes
It is difficult toinstall CDS-Invenio. Ittakes morethan a dayto installsuccessfullyCDS-Invenio.
It takes fewhours to suc-cessfully installDSpace.
It is tricky toinstall DoKS.Installation ofDoKs needsexpertise asthere is needto change dif-ferent file pathswhich is notmentioned inthe installationprocess. Ittakes a day tosuccessfullyinstall DoKS.
It is easy toinstall EPrints.It takes aroundtwo to fourhours tocompletelyconfigure thesoftware.
If all environ-ments are setproperly it iseasy to installFedora. Ittook aroundtwo hours tocompletelyconfigurefedora.
InstallingGreesnstonesoftware isvery easy. Ittakes hardlyany time toinstall thesoftware.
Installing My-CoRe is easy.It took abouttwo to threehours to dosuccessfulinstallation ofMyCoRe
Installation ofSOPS is noteasy. Onehas to changepaths in manyfiles. It requiresexpertise helpin handlingSOPS instal-lation. It takesaround four tofive hours toinstall SOPS.
Fedora is notmeant for dif-ferent users.Only fedoraAd-min can submitdocuments tothe repository.
ThoughtGreenstonehas abilityto configurefor differentusers thisfeature doesnot work prop-erly through’collector’
It is easy toconfigure My-CoRe for differ-ent users.
SOPS is easyto configure fordifferent users.
CHAPTER 12. COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS 387
a frequent intervals. Software does not have any proceduresin place to monitor and receive
notifications when hardware technology is changed.
Fedora installation does not require any specific hardware configuration. It can be installed
on any PIV machine with 512 MB RAM. Fedora is well maintained by its developers and
regularly new versions are brought out. Software does not have any procedures in place to
monitor and receive notifications when hardware technologyis changed.
Greenstonerequires minimum P III or PIV machine for installation. Since 1998, Green-
stone developers are bringing out continuously new versions. A major change is made in
Greenstone version 2 and now Greenstone version 3 is available but it is not yet stable.
Software does not have any procedures in place to monitor andreceive notifications when
hardware technology is changed.
MyCoRe can be installed on any PIV machine though no specific hardware requirements
are mentioned on the MyCoRe site. In Germany MyCoRe has been actively used and
regularly new versions of MyCoRe are brought out. Software does not have any procedures
in place to monitor and receive notifications when hardware technology is changed.
SOPSworks well with Intel Pentium 133 MHz class machine. SOPS hasnot brought out
any new versions after version 1.0. Software does not have any mechanisms to monitor
and receive notifications when hardware technology changes.
12.9.2 Security
Table 12.8 lists evaluation criteria related to system security. All software have secure
database connection through login and password except Greenstone. Greenstone software
database access is not available to end users. DSpace, DoKS,Fedora & MyCoRe supports
data encrytion. Fedora also supports digital signature feature. DSpace, DoKS, EPrints
supports md5 checksum. Fedora supports data integrity stamp for the datastream which
can be calculated using one of many standard algorithms suchas MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256,
SHA-384, SHA-512.
CHAPTER 12. COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS 388
Table 12.8: Security & System Level Security
Security & SystemLevel Security
CDS-Invenio
DSpace DoKS EPrints Fedora Green-stone
MyCoRe SOPS
Data Encryption No Yes Yes No Yes No Yes No
Digital Signatures No No No Yes Yes No No No
Server Security Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes
Fixity No Softwaresup-portsmd5check-sum.
No Softwaresup-portsmd5check-sum.
Fedora supports dataintegrity stamp for thedatastream which canbe calculated using oneof many standard algo-rithms such as MD5,SHA-1, SHA-256, SHA-384, SHA-512
No Softwaresupportsmd5 check-sum.
No
Firewall Support No No No No No No No No
12.9.3 General features supported by each software
12.9.3.1 Back end maintenance: None of the software requireany back end maintenance.
12.9.3.2 RSS Support: CDS-Invenio, DSpace, DoKS, EPrints,SOPS provide RSS support.
Greenstone, Fedora, MyCoRe does not provide any RSS support.
Greenstone is trivial. DSpace upgrading is not very simple.If the major version re-
lease difference is there, one has to upgrade back end database as well as the DSpace
version which not very simple for the end user. Upgrading DSpace requires more
knowledge of backend technology. No new versions of SOPS aremade available
after the first release hence how to upgrade these software isnot required.
12.9.3.4 Data Migration: CDS-Invenio, DSpace, DoKS, EPrints, Fedora, Greenstone, My-
CoRe support migration of data from one repository softwareto another repository
software. No information available for data migration for SOPS software.
12.9.3.5 Ranking Algorithm: CDS-Invenio supports to rank all documents that are added into
the repository and SOPS software supports to rank each document that is added into
the repository in the scale of poor, average, good, very goodand excellent. No other
software support any ranking algorithm.
CHAPTER 12. COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS 389
12.9.3.6 Known issues/Bugs in the system
CDS-Invenio data entry has one bug, which is while submitting documents into the
repository one has to apply a patch which needs to be used to get this function work-
ing. The patch is websubmit_engine.py. There are no major issues in DSpace but
DSpace data import/export from different instances of DSpace is not very easy to
carry out. DoKS document submission is not very easy. Systemthrows error while
submitting documents into the repository. One of the main drawback of Greenstone
is, it does not have incremental indexing. For every item that is added into the reposi-
tory one has to rebuild the collection. If there are millionsof records then the rebuild
process takes lot of time, which is not the case with other software. The “collector”
option available with Greenstone does not work properly. There is no ’log out’ option
available for web interface which is one of the main bug in Greenstone. MyCoRe
installation has a small bug. While installing MyCoRe one has to rerun ’ant create’
and ’ant webapps’ commands twice and then only it gets successfully installed. One
of the major issue with SOPS is its installation. One has to change several paths in
many files while installing SOPS and then only it gets successfully installed.
12.9.3.7 Submitting Error Reports: CDS-Invenio, DSpace allow to submit error reports for
any error while using the software but DoKS, EPrints, Fedora, MyCoRe, SOPS does
not allow to submit any error reports while using the software.
12.9.3.8 Number of developers working for the software
Table 12.9: Number of Developers Working for Each Software
Name of the Software Number ofDevelopers
CDS-Invenio 2DSpace 14DoKS 6EPrints 6Fedora 16Greenstone 9MyCoRe 16SOPS No information
available.
CHAPTER 12. COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS 390
As shown in Table 12.9 maximum number of developers are working on Fedora and
MyCoRe followed by DSpace and Greenstone.
12.9.3.9 Total Number of Downloads of the Software
Table 12.10: Total Number of Downloads of Each Software
Software Total Number of Downloads
CDS-Invenio No information available.DSpace 3926 (7th March 2008)DoKS 173 (23rd February 2008)EPrints No information available.Fedora No information available.Greenstone No information available.MyCoRe 27 (3rd March 2008)SOPS No information available.
DSpace is downloaded maximum number of times as shown in Table 12.10. DSpace,
DoKS and MyCoRe are available through sourceforge site hences different statistics
are available but other software are not available through sourceforge site hence their
total number of downloads are not maintained by the softwarecreators.
12.9.3.10 Strength of the Community
Table 12.11: Strength of the Community of Each Software
Software Total Numberof downloads
CDS-Invenio 19DoKS 6DSpace 307EPrints 251Fedora 28Greenstone Not KnownMyCoRe 17SOPS 12
Table 12.11 shows that there are more number of installations of DSpace followed by
EPrints. Greenstone is heavily used in Asian countries but many of the installation of
CHAPTER 12. COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS 391
Greenstone are running on Intranet servers hence it is difficult to know total number
of users of Greenstone [1]. CDS-Invenio, Fedora, MyCoRe, SOPS and DoKS have
less user base.
12.9.3.11 License Terms and Conditions
Table 12.12: License Terms and Conditions
Software License Terms and Conditions
CDS-Invenio GNU General Public LicenseDSpace BSD Distribution LicenseDoKS GNU General Public LicenseEPrints GPL License terms and conditionsFedora Mozilla Public LicenseGreenstone GNU General Public LicenseMyCoRe GNU General Public LicenseSOPS No License specified
Table 12.12 shows license terms and conditions for each software. Each software is
available under different license terms and conditions. For SOPS software there is
no license terms and conditions specified.
12.9.3.12 Users Mailing List used by Each Software
Table 12.13: Mailing List of Users of Each Software
It can handlelarge volumesof data andhas capacity tohandle morerequests at atime.
No mentionabout loadbalancingof DSpacefound any-where thoughDSpace canhandle millionsof documentscurrently norepositoryholds millionsof records.
No EPrints canperform wellif millionsof recordsare addedin EPrints ormore numberof people try toaccess EPrintsdatabase.
Fedora hasbeen tested byadding millionsof recordsand it hasperformed wellthough num-ber of usersaccessingdatabase aremore.
No No No
Visualization No No No No No No No NoPersonalization Software
supports per-sonalizatonfeature andeach user cancreate theirown collec-tion baskets.Users canalso generatediscussionon any doc-ument whichis available inthe repository.They can alsowrite reviewsof any docu-ment that areavailable in therepository.
DSpace sup-ports ’MyDSpace’ fea-ture which al-low end usersto subscribeto a particu-lar collectionand receiveupdates.
DoKS sup-ports to addsearcheddocumentsthrough DoKSrepository intoindividualsprofile.
No No No No Software sup-ports to createpersonal col-lections.
Softwaresupports toprovide com-munity ser-vices such as itallow membersto exchangeideas, makeannoucementsand writereviews.
No No No No No No SOPS sup-ports to initiatediscussion ona particulardocumentavailable inSOPS repos-itory as wellas allow enduser to rateeach digitaldocument.
Page Ranking Software sup-ports pageranking algo-rithm for alldocumentsthat are addedinto the reposi-tory.
No No No No No No No
CHAPTER 12. COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS 404
12.14 Digital Preservation
CDS-Invenio uses automatic conversion of any text file format to PDF format for the
possibility of long-term preservation of digital documents and future conversion. It uses
MARC 21 format to ensure portability and preservation. Software does not yet support
several other features related to digital preservation. There is no mention of any digital
preservation strategy. Software preserves file’s originalidentity such as its name and size.
It supports to upload compound digital objects for e.g. it can upload postscript files and can
automatically convert postscript files into pdf format. It also supports to upload multiple
file formats of the same document. It has facility to keep licensing conditions for individual
images/objects. CDS-Invenio can handle variety of file formats but does not yet support
file format versioning. Digital preservation in CDS-Invenio is supported to very limited
extent.
DSpace supports bit level preservation, where a digital file is preserved exactly as it was
created without any change. While submitting documents in DSpace system keeps track of
known bitstream formats and their support level. The repository provides a list of supported
file formats. Supported formats include those that are documented standards (e.g., TIFF,
AIFF, XML) or have published specifications (e.g., PDF, RIFF).
The other two categories of support for DSpace are "known" and "unsupported". "Known"
formats are those that are common enough to be familiar and usually quite popular, but
which are proprietary and there are no published specifications of those formats. "Unsup-
ported" formats are those that are either unknown to the Libraries or are extremely rare (e.
g., a compiled program, a commercial CAD/CAM file, etc.).
If the software supports a particular file format it shows thelist of supported file formats
else, if format is not supported by DSpace it will give a message “DSpace could not iden-
tify the format of this file. Please describe the format file inthe input box below the list”.
DSpace has built in data integrity check using MD5 (a messagedigest algorithm for secu-
rity applications) to ensure the correctness of each file. DSpace doesnot have any feature
to preserve pre-existing persistent identifiers for submitted digital objects. The provenance
information in DSpace consists of information such as submitted by, email of the submitter,
date, total number of bitstreams submitted, date of making document available on DSpace
CHAPTER 12. COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS 405
web site, actual title of the file format uploaded, total bytes and checksum data. This data
is maintained in DC metadata.
DSpace has mechanisms to keep licensing conditions for eachindividual object as well as
software support to track and manage copyright and restriction issues. The software gen-
erates fixity data after submitting a file into the repositoryby the submitter. It is possible to
add new file formats into DSpace but they may not be supported by DSpace from preser-
vation point of view. DSpace can handle any type of MIME type of file format but may not
be able to preserve them if the format is not open standard.
DSpace version 1.4.2 does not support file format versioning. Software does not record
any representation information and system does not have anyway for automatic format
registration. While submitting any document into DSpace repository the software gives list
of DSpace supported file formats and if the particular file format is not in list it provides
option for the submitter to write details about the file format which is submitted by the
submitter.
EPrints at present does not support any digital preservation strategy but support some of
the features which would be required from digital preservation point of view and would be
useful in future. Software keeps file’s original identitiessuch as its name, size and created
date. Software supports checksum with MD5. EPrints version3 has introduced a new
’history’ function that documents all changes that are madeto records, from the point of
deposit onwards. This information will be useful in future,when there will be need to
modify the content of the repositories, e. g. to migrate file formats. To keep track of what
has happened to a record the repository will need to store both the object itself and all
actions that have been performed on it over time.
One of the important feature of EPrints is it preserves pre-existing persistent identifiers of
submitted digital objects. Software supports to link together compound digital objects and
supports to keep licensing conditions for individual digital objects in the repository with
different licensing conditions. EPrints uses MIME type identification of each file format,
but yet does not record any representation information of any file format added into the
repository.
CHAPTER 12. COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS 406
Fedora at present does not support any preservation strategy but all objects added into
Fedora repository are Internally represented in the file system such as open XML format.
These XML files include data and metadata for the objects plusrelationships to services
and other objects.
Fedora does not preserve file’s original identity. It changes file’s name into the PID number
assigned by Fedora. Fedora supports variety of data integrity checks while file being added
into the repository such as MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256, SHA-384, SHA-512. Fedora sup-
ports to upload alternate ID’s or alternate URI of the digital documents if they are already
existing.
Fedora documents provenance information of each object that is added into the repository.
Software supports to upload compound digital objects whichis one of the unique feature
of Fedora and useful from digital preservation point of view. Fedora has ability to handle
variety of file formats and it does support file format versioning. Fedora uses Internet
MIME type for representing file formats and supports automatic format registration. For
unknown file formats system converts those files to Fedora supported MIME type formats
and uploads the documents.
Fedora supports audit trail features where it provies an essential technology for managing
the life cycle of the digital object. If the descriptive metadata of a digital object is changed
Fedora keeps two versions of the metadata. Software has digital signature feature support.
Fedora has been found more useful from digital preservationpoint of view.
The other software such as DoKS, Greenstone, MyCoRe, SOPS has not yet implemented
any digital preservation support.
Bibliography
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from the first decade,JCDL'07, June 18-23, p.147-156.