DRS User Guide

The Digital Repository Service (DRS) is a secure repository system designed to store and share the scholarly work from Northeastern University’s colleges, departments, faculty, and staff. The DRS was developed by Northeastern University Libraries as a tool for University faculty and staff to protect the valuable information and data that has been created as part of the University’s research and instructional mission. It provides long-term security for the files it stores, as well as access management controls and support for various metadata standards (including MODS, Dublin Core, TEI, and LOM) to help ensure that data is as accessible and usable in the present and the future.

The DRS also provides mechanisms through which repository data can be used in other venues, such as departmental portals, digital research projects, and online publications. Users can upload files, make them public, and share them with anyone, or restrict access to only a certain set of users. The DRS is also a discovery platform; anyone can search, browse, view, and download content that is made public. Because the DRS is built using Fedora, an open source repository system with a user-friendly API, objects stored in the DRS can be accessed and displayed using customized web-publishing tools, like Omeka, Drupal, or WordPress.

Linking, Citing, and Re-using Materials in the DRS

Linking

Files deposited in the DRS are assigned a handle, which is permanent URL. Find the file's handle by scrolling to the end of its full description page.

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It’s important to keep in mind that not all files in the DRS are publicly available. When you are logged in you will have access to files other may not. You can still link to these files, but not everyone will have permission to view or download the files.

Citing and Re-Using DRS content

DRS and Library staff respect copyright and expect users to follow all copyright and fair use guidelines. If an object in the DRS is under copyright (regardless of whether it has a copyright or other rights restriction notice), make sure you follow all copyright or fair use policies before using or distributing that object. For more information about copyright and fair use, visit the Library web page on copyright and fair use: http://library.northeastern.edu/get-help/copyright-and-fair-use. Please follow appropriate citation rules for citing DRS content in your work (future DRS development will include a citation generator).

For Expert Users

Bulk Uploads

It is not always feasible to deposit project files on-by-one. The DRS has two established workflows for uploading many files at a time:

Custom Upload Tool

Communities that would like to deposit similar files on a regular basis can upload multiples files at a time using a custom upload tool. The upload tool is designed to extract metadata directly from the uploaded files (including title, creator, date created, description, etc…) and deposit those files in a specific collection. Once the upload tool is developed for a project or a community, authorized users can compress the desired files into a single .zip file and upload them in one step.

Back-End Processing

Communities that would like to deposit many different file types, with varying metadata, into various collections may do so by submitting their files, along with the metadata for those files, to DRS staff. If metadata is not readily available for the files, DRS staff can design a spreadsheet or form to gather the necessary information needed to deposit the files. If the files already have metadata, which could be stored in a spreadsheet or a document, DRS staff can manipulate that data to create metadata appropriate for the DRS.

We will be happy to work with you to discuss the best method for your project.

Groups and Grouper (Future development)

Grouper is a tool supported by ITS that defines and manages groups of people in the Northeastern community, and all University staff and faculty have access to this group management tool. Once a group is created in Grouper it can be used in the DRS to set viewing and metadata editing privileges for collections and for files. The advantage to using Grouper to define your group is that it only needs to be managed in one place, Grouper, and as an administrator of your group, you, not DRS staff, have control over who can access your, or your community’s, files or collections.

To start curating groups in Grouper, visit https://neuidmsso.neu.edu/grouper/ and sign in with your MyNEU credentials.

Managing Groups

Grouper is an ITS supported tool. For more detailed information about using Grouper, or for help with issues, please visit the Grouper Help page (https://neuidmsso.neu.edu/grouper/help.do) or contact ITS.

Help and Other Resources

Documentation

Other helpful documents, like the DRS FAQ, can be found on the Digital Scholarship Group's DRS page: http://dsg.neu.edu/resources/drs/

Contact

Please contact DRS staff (Library-Repository-Team[at]neu.edu) for for help with the DRS.