Sandbox
Changes to the ANDS Sandbox September 2011
From September 2011 ANDS will use a single environment, with a workflow to move records from draft status through to publication. Find out more
I have records in the Sandbox. What do I need to do?
You will need to work with your ANDS liaison officer to organise migration of your Sandbox records to the new system.
Your ANDS liaison officer will need to collect some information from you and pass it on to the ANDS technical team. No records will be migrated until after the new system's release, and no records will be migrated without your approval. Through your liaison officer, you will have complete control over the migration of your records.
The Sandbox will continue to exist as a legacy system following the release of the new system, but we would prefer that you migrate your records to the new system as soon as possible. We intend to decommission the Sandbox in November 2011. Once data has been migrated from the Sandbox it will be removed, and you should manage your records via the new system.
Data that is currently in Sandbox will not be published and viewable in Research Data Australia immediately after it is migrated, but will have a status of either Draft or Submitted for Assessment depending on the Sandbox status of the data at the time of migration. More information about statuses
The information below will remain accessible here for reference until the Sandbox is decommissioned. ANDS Partners should contact their Client Liaison Officer to discuss migrating their records out of the Sandbox.
Configuring a Data Source
ANDS will create a Data Source record in the Sandbox.
The Data Source Administrator can then log in and complete configuration of their Data Source using the Online Services interface, and proceed to testing their harvest process. More information
Working with records
Initially most developers will create metadata records within the Sandbox using manual data entry.
Business rules and best practice for each element are described for each element in the Content Providers Guide.
The Sandbox also contains a Data Source Quality Check tool. More information.
Configuring your OAI-PMH provider software
At minimum this will involve the development of a native metadata-to-RIF-CS crosswalk, and configuring of this within the OAI-PMH provider. For repositories that focus on items, configuring may also involve aggregation of items into meaningful collections for discovery purposes. There are many OAI-PMH providers included in repository software.
Configuration varies depending on the software and environment. Generally the following will be required:
- Configure the data directory which will hold the RIF-CS files.
- Specify 'rif' as the metadata format.
- Specify 'http://ands.org.au/standards/rif-cs/registryObjects' as the format namespace
- Specify 'http://services.ands.org.au/home/orca/schemata/registryObjects.xsd' as the schema location.
- Generate the RIF-CS files; one registry object per XML file, and the filename must be of the form <RIF-CS record key>.xml.
- Index the RIF-CS data directory from the jOAI admin page.
- Test the provider through either the admin interface or directly in the browser using a request URL, for example, http://localhost:8080/oai/provider?verb=Identify
For technical support, consult your ANDS contact or services@ands.org.au
Resources: RIF-CS provider information
Mapping
The first step in contributing metadata to the ANDS Collections Registry is to review the metadata already captured in your local repository or associated metadata store, and map that collection description information to the RIF-CS Schema structure. More information
Generating XML
Once mapping and information collection are in place, a computer programmer will need to write code to extract the description data from local storage and generate a RIF-CS Schema XML document. ANDS provides documentation and tools to make this work easier (available from http://www.ands.org.au/resource/techdocs.html ).
Testing
Initial testing will normally be done in the Sandbox environment.
Testing the harvest configuration
To test whether the harvest process has been correctly configured in the harvester application, use the Test button in the Data Source administration view.
This will cause the registry to either:
- attempt a connection to the Data Source at its configured URI (for Harvest method of DIRECT); or
- submit a test harvest request to the Harvester (for Harvest method of Harvester DIRECT or Harvester OAI-PMH).
The results of this test will be recorded in the Activity Log. No data will be imported or modified. This provides a test of the Data Source that can be used to assist in the development of interfaces or for troubleshooting a Data Source.
Testing importing data
To test whether data can be imported correctly, expose some RIF-CS XML documents at your harvest point, then use the Import button in the Data Source administration view. The Activity Log and Harvest Requests status display provides feedback on the success of the process.
Activity Log and Harvest Requests status panel
The final step in testing involves reviewing the uploaded records in the Sandbox versions of the ANDS Collections Registry and in Research Data Australia to check that they are displaying as expected.
Using the Activity Log
The activity log shows the results of all actions taken by the Data Source.
Use the Refresh button to refresh the page, including the log.
Use the Clear Log button to clear the log history.
The log stores up to 2000 characters for each logged event. Data Source Administrators can clear the log whenever convenient. Log entries cannot be retrieved after being cleared. Log entry examples.
ANDS system validation and checking
When ingesting harvested XML, ANDS applies the following quality checks:
- Whether the XML is valid and well-formed (this should have been detected as part of the testing process within the data store or metadata store before submitting test data to ANDS)
- Whether the XML conforms to the RIF-CS schema. If not, error messages are provided in the Activity Log .
Urgent import of records
Use the Import function from the Data Source account screen if there is a need for urgent uploads or overwrites, such as for training, for a conference, or to correct errors.
Exposing records and copyright
Exposing your XML documents to OAI-PMH harvesters, by default, makes those documents available to any harvester, not just the ANDS harvester. It is important to include rights information in your XML documents if you wish to constrain re-use of the metadata they contain.
| Date | Change history |
| 26 October 2010 | First web publication |
| 29 Sept 2011 | Added information about decommissioning of Sandbox in November 2011 |
Please send any feedback on this page to guides@ands.org.au
