Unit 6 Blog: DSpace Installation

 Overall, I found the installation of DSpace to be relatively painless. I did run into the “HTTP status 404 - /jspui” message when trying to get to the DSpace webpage for the first time, but restarting my server solved that problem.

I also noticed that the first time I changed the site news, the changes went into effect, then I went on the server and changed my site name to IRLS 675 DSpace Repository and the site news was back to the default. I’m wondering if I forgot to hit “Save” the first time I changed the text, though part of me seems to remember completing that step.

I think that I am understanding more of the process and commands than I did when I did my first standard install back in 672. There were still a few sequences of commands that didn’t make a lot of sense to me, but I was careful not to make any typos so everything worked fine. I embarrassingly did forget that when you use the
“#” symbol in MySql, you’re marking a new line of text and we shouldn’t actually input the # sign, but MySql recognized the problem right away and reminded me to take it out.

Looking at the first set of directions for installing DSpace (https://wiki.duraspace.org/display/DSPACE/Installing+DSpace+4.2+on+Ubuntu+Server+14.04.1+LTS) I see that they tell you to use GitHub to download the DSpace release. So you need to install “git” to use stuff from the GitHub repository. Overall this install seems pretty similar, though it doesn’t go into the level of detail that ours did. I feel like I could use these instructions to install DSpace successfully.

Looking at the second set of directions (https://wiki.duraspace.org/display/DSPACE/Installing+DSpace+1.7+on+Ubuntu), these seem extremely similar to what we did in class. I see that they’re using Tomcat 6 instead of 7, but most of the other commands and applications seem the same. These directions are for DSpace 1.7, it doesn’t look like much has changed from DSpace 1.X to 4.x.

The third set of directions (https://wiki.duraspace.org/display/DSDOC4x/Installing+DSpace) has a “For the Impatioent” section that shows the install in just a few commands for experienced Unix admins. Many of the commands in this section make sense to me, though they are in a different order than we did them in our installs. I would guess that this type of method should only be tried by experienced admins because it’s much more difficult to see where problems are occurring. Since we worked step by step and took a few snapshots, it was easy to troubleshoot and fix the install. I found the long-form install directions for this one a bit more opaque, mostly because there were many more contingencies outlined (PostgreSQL vs. Oracle, for example).

I’m excited to work with DSpace. I see that many academic institutions use DSpace for their repositories, so I feel like its important for me to get some experience with DSpace for my future career.

Unit 5 Blog: Drupal Modules and Thoughts on Drupal

The Drupal module I chose to install is Administration Menu (https://www.drupal.org/project/admin_menu). Administration Menu allows administrative users to see the menu structure of Drupal by mousing over them instead of clicking through each section. This is especially useful for novice users like me because I don’t have to remember where each section/option is located, I can find it quickly by moving my mouse.

The Administration Menu module doesn’t have any dependencies, so it was easy to install. I followed basically the same instructions as installing any of the other modules in the Unit 5 Tech Assignment. While I read about other classmates having more difficult experiences with modules, my experience made me want to try more of them. I know YouTube videos are prohibited from being added to our collections since the links aren’t stable and there are attribution/authenticity issues, but there is a module called Media: YouTube (https://www.drupal.org/project/media_youtube) that I am interested in playing around with on my site in my spare time. I am also interested in the Biblio module. I was disappointed to see that the site with the sample biblio elements is no longer online.

Overall, I have enjoyed playing around with Drupal. While the menu structure is a bit complex, the flexibility of Drupal to host so many types of sites makes the menu system necessary. I am looking forward to trying out DSpace and Omeka. I have played with Omeka a bit in a Digital Humanities course last semester, and at this point I can’t decide which CMS would be better for hosting my collection. I am very excited to be able to add a line about experience with Drupal to my resume. Of course, I need to be work more with Drupal to have any real facility with it.

Unit 3 Blog: Pacing

Overall, I am happy with the pacing of the tech sections. I agree that these sections are less intensive than the tech assignments in 672—these (so far) are more about installing a tool and then learning how to use it. I like that this class builds on the foundations of 672, but makes reviewing concepts optional instead of required. I just took 672 last semester, so most things are still fresh in my mind.

I will admit that this course is difficult to balance with the three other courses I am taking as well as my job. With the weekly readings, blog, tech discussion, management discussion, and dropbox assignment, this class is definitely more work than many of my “read and discuss” classes. While I can do the readings on an ad hoc basis when I have time, the tech portion requires a block of time to sit down at my computer and work. Last week, I had time to install and experiment with JHOVE, but I still haven’t written up all my assignments. However, it’s still early in the semester and I am adjusting to my new classes and work schedule, so hopefully I will be back on track stating this week.

I’m really glad that we’re starting to work with Drupal so early in the course. As the tech lecture said this week, Drupal is an immensely complex content management system and our assignments only scratch the surface of what it is capable of. It’s both exciting and scary to think that many of the tasks associated with our individual collections will involve us tailoring Drupal to our needs.

I enjoyed Level 10’s Basic Drupal Video Tutorials. I added an RSS feed of my DigIn blog to my drupal page, as well as some practice articles and pages. I think the videos (level 10 and UA CBT) were slightly more helpful than the written Drupal admin guide for me, since I am a visual learner and I liked to be able to do exactly what the person in the video was doing at the same time they were doing it. However, once learning the basics of the menu system from the videos, it was very easy to follow the steps for the weekly assignment.

I’m excited to start working with my digital collection on Drupal next week!