New Stuff

New Features Planned for EPrints 3.1

This page is to collect the features that we have planned or had requested to appear in EPrints 3.1 . This page does NOT constitute any form of guarantee as to the features that will actually appear!

Already In

• the ability to search subobjects and related items, eg. search eprints by document format
• the improved way gen_static works so that most pages can be rebuilt automatically to save running the script all the time (current exception= auto js and auto css but that's doable)
• the action icons for delete/deposit/edit etc on "Manage Items" and "Review"
• Integration with Researcher's Desktop (the repository is just another Network Place via WebDAV).
• API Toolkit - a service-level API that is available through scripting and REST interfaces

Increased Interoperability

• More importers to improve the ease of deposit by leveraging existing editorial effort in external services (e.g. arxiv, ACM Digital Library, IEEE Digital Library, Web of Science, DSpace, Fedora, ORE, PDF and Office metadata extractors)
• Extending data-entry quality with more Name Authorities (e.g. Conferences) and other auto-completion (uncontrolled keywords).
• Increase the value of holdings with a wider range of exporters (e.g. wordprocessors, spreadsheets, email, ZIP, MP3 for podcasting, RDF for the Semantic Web, DSpace, Fedora, ORE)

Repository-scale Quality Management:

• duplicate detection
• legacy metadata correction using name authorities and authoritative sources such as CrossRef
• efficient batch checking and editing including one-step search and replace across the whole repository, e.g. replace "DeRoure" with "De Roure" in all Creator.Surname fields or batch editing - allowing a single metadata field to be efficiently checked and corrected in multiple eprints, e.g. a screen containing editable Journal Name fields from 100 separate eprints.

Administration Configuration Management

User interface control panels for all repository configuration that are currently performed by editing configuration files.

• Skins manager for branding.
• Manager for object types (e.g. article, thesis) and metadata fields (e.g. "experimental technician" for a data set or "director" for a multimedia object.)
• Multilingual phrase editor.
• Deposit Workflow editor.
• Process Workflow editor (see below)
• Subject Hierachy editor (already exists)
• Browse View and Bespoke Search editors
• Plugin Manager to control non-core software.

Other Features

• Process Workflow: as well as the deposit workflow, a process workflow will manage the various sequences of actions that an eprint can undergo from creation to final deposit (and beyond). This may include collaborative authoring, problem management, refereeing, copyright clearance, security clearance, IPR checking, metadata quality checks, e-journal and conference workflows. (EPrints currently allows, but does not manage, process workflows.)
• Virtual Collections: an individual eprint may be represent a collection of other eprint items; mainly used for image collections, workshop proceedings or learning objects composed of teaching assets.
• Interoperable Statistics: statistics on the download use of individual eprints, eprint collections (per user, per research group, per community) or whole repository.
• Calendar view: calendar screen to track all embargo and license expirations, plus other planned events and timeouts.
• Increased support for "eprints application profile" Dublin Core recommendations.
• Web Services interface: currently in beta, awaiting debugging of the .NET SOAP interface.