Integrating Drupal and DSpace

[Pedro Amorim]

My name is Pedro Amorim and I am following Tim's advice and asking the user list, now the google group, some questions I have regarding DSpace:

Integration with Drupal - We want to use Drupal as the public interface CMS (posts, pages, newsletter, etc). Two things are required to happen:

1) Make DSpace content available to Drupal backoffice (through the DSpace and Feeds module);

2) Make DSpace search available to Drupal frontoffice. We need to find a way to query the DSpace search and retrieve the results, we know the REST API does not provide that and we're still figuring out how we're gonna do this.

Has anyone attempted this before?

[Michael Guthrie]

Hi Pedro

If you use the forked version of DSpace with the Wijiti REST API, you will have the full DSpace API exposed

We have it integrated with several repositories with PHP based CMSs. 

For example Bergen University College BORA is DSpace integrated with Joomla https://bora.hib.no/

Notice the search and the solr faceting being achieved via Joomla interface.

Soon we will be releasing the 5.x version and will the 6.x version when DSpace 6.x is stable. We intend to continue this parity until DSpace REST API achieves parity with ours. We run the wijiti rest api on our hosted DSpace platform.

https://jspace.atlassian.net/wiki/display/DSPACEAPI/DSpace+REST+API+Home

Lets us know if you need any help in this.

We also  have some plugins that allow for displaying of DSpace items in WordPress, and for harvesting from other sources and injecting into the workflow. We are doing this for the CRIStin harvesting in Norway.

Best regards,

Michael

Michael Guthrie

KnowledgeArc Ltd.

http://knowledgearc.com

michael@knowledgearc.com

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[Pik Botha]

Hi Pedro,

My feeling is questions like this highlight the need for a decent generic CMS module inside the DSpace-rather than trying to build yet more Heath Robinson complexity over the top. Once project reach a level of external complexity, the Hydra-Rails project would seem a better fit.

Having played with various DSpace REST approaches for our websites, I would be extremely dubious about building with anything that isn't based on the official DSpace REST-API  It would be better to develop something yourselves based on the common REST-API approach and contribute back any specific hooks for Drupal to the Drupal or DSpace communities . Forking the DSpace platform which is at present attempting to consolidate many features and ideas around a common approach is going to add big overheads to future updates and put your fortunes into the hands of random small suppliers that may or may not be around in the future.  However, you could contact with a reputable DSpace provider like http://atmire.com/website/?q=services/customization. Their own website appears to use Drupal, so maybe they have some familiarity with using it with the DSpace. 

 

Regards,

Pik 

Pik Botha

Lead Web Developer, 

Western PIA

pboth...@outlook.com

Sent from my iPad

[Pedro Amorim]

Hello Michael and Pik,

Thank you guys for your replies.

I have some updates:

1) Michael, I tried installing the Wijiti Rest API but was unsuccessfull. I'm using DSpace 5.2 and tried the Wijiti Rest API webapp but from what I understood the Wijiti is only compatible with DSpace 1.8 and 3.0.

2) Regarding my initial question on How to use the DSpace search from outside the DSpace itself (i.e. using the Rest API), this is what I stumbled upon:

- Up untill DSpace 3.0 there was a /search endpoint in the REST API, according to official docs ( https://wiki.duraspace.org/display/DSPACE/REST+API#RESTAPI-Contentsearching ), leading me to think it was possible to do this is in previous releases;

- However, from DSpace 4.0 and forward, the /search endpoint is no longer available and instead they added a new endpoint for items "items/find-by-metadata". Is this the way we're supposed to search for items using the API? 

Example: 

https://wiki.duraspace.org/display/DSDOC5x/REST+API?focusedCommentId=68068154#comment-68068154

3) Pik, I have contacted @mire but for the time being it's not in the scope of our project to subcontract other companies, not yet at least.

[helix84]

On Thu, Oct 8, 2015 at 12:52 PM, Pedro Amorim <pjamo...@gmail.com> wrote:

2) Regarding my initial question on How to use the DSpace search from outside the DSpace itself (i.e. using the Rest API), this is what I stumbled upon:

- Up untill DSpace 3.0 there was a /search endpoint in the REST API, according to official docs ( https://wiki.duraspace.org/display/DSPACE/REST+API#RESTAPI-Contentsearching ), leading me to think it was possible to do this is in previous releases;

- However, from DSpace 4.0 and forward, the /search endpoint is no longer available and instead they added a new endpoint for items "items/find-by-metadata". Is this the way we're supposed to search for items using the API? 

There was no official REST API until DSpace 4.0, what you found is an old GSoC project, the first iteration of a REST API.

The official REST API currently doesn't have a search endpoint (besides items/find-by-metadata) and it's not clear it ever will, as it would just duplicate other available APIs. There is Solr search [1], which you can easily use as long as you can trust that the search client will never attempt to write to Solr. If you can't, then consider using the public open-search API.

[1] http://wiki.duraspace.org/display/DSPACE/Solr

[2] https://wiki.duraspace.org/display/DSDOC5x/Configuration+Reference#ConfigurationReference-OpenSearchSupport

Regards,
~~helix84

Compulsory reading: DSpace Mailing List Etiquette
https://wiki.duraspace.org/display/DSPACE/Mailing+List+Etiquette

[Pedro Amorim]

Helix84,

Thank you so much for replying.

This http://wiki.duraspace.org/display/DSPACE/Solr looks like exactly what I want/need.

I'll do some experimenting and hopefully get back to you.

Cheers,

Pedro

[Layale Bassil]

Hello Michael,

 

I need to use Drupal with Dspace 5.2 (currently installed). Any of the plugins that you have might be of help? You mentioned below that you will soon release the version of Wijiti REST API, how soon can this be?

 

Many thanks,

Regards.

 

Layale Bassil

Software Engineer – Business Analyst

IT Solutions Delivery Department

 

American University of Beirut
Office of Information Technology
P.O.Box 11-0236
Riad El-Solh, Beirut 1107 2020, Lebanon

T: +961 (1) 350000 x 3649 | M: +961 (03) 929876
E: lb...@aub.edu.lb

W . Fb . Fl . T . Y . L . IT

 

Think Green... Keep it on the Screen… Save a Tree... 

[Monika C. Mevenkamp]

Hi Layale 

Henry Humansky put a new version of  his drupal module that works with version 5 out, see https://www.drupal.org/project/dspace

Monika

—

Monika Mevenkamp

Digital Repository Infrastructure Developer

Princeton University

Phone: 609-258-4161

Skype: mo-meven

On Oct 8, 2015, at 8:37 AM, Layale Bassil <lb...@aub.edu.lb> wrote:

Hello Michael,

 

I need to use Drupal with Dspace 5.2 (currently installed). Any of the plugins that you have might be of help? You mentioned below that you will soon release the version of Wijiti REST API, how soon can this be?

 

Many thanks,

Regards.

 

Layale Bassil

Software Engineer – Business Analyst

IT Solutions Delivery Department

 

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[Monika C. Mevenkamp]

On the topic of using solr instead of rest 

YES: there is no search endpoint in the rest api 

BUT given that there is a plan to develop a new web ui and given that the current plan/hope is to have the UI interface with the dspace core via the rest api - there is a very high probability that a search endpoint will reappear

As far as I know there is no guarantee that the solr index will not be reorganized at some point. In my opinion relying on a particular solr index of another application is almost as bad as relying on internal DB schemas. 

Monika

—

Monika Mevenkamp

Digital Repository Infrastructure Developer

Princeton University

Phone: 609-258-4161

Skype: mo-meven

[Michael Guthrie]

HI Layale

We will be releasing the upgraded version to 5.x sometime this month. We have it in production already onhttp://bora.hib.no and some headless archives, but just need to package it up and add it to the wiki.

Kind regards,

Michael

[Layale Bassil]

Hello Michael,

 

Thank you so much. Please let me once this is done.

 

I was checking the file “dspace-7.x-2.x-dev” under https://www.drupal.org/node/1316642/release and I thought this is the file that you were talking about, is it?

 

Thanks again,

Regards.

 

Layale Bassil

Software Engineer – Business Analyst

IT Solutions Delivery Department

 

American University of Beirut

[Pedro Amorim]

Hello Layale, I was wondering if you had any luck with that new version of the DSpace Drupal module.

I have been trying it out and had to make some changes to the code in order to make it work. Although it's still not working entirely (the records are created as DSpace nodes (or Biblio content type) but the mapping/parsing is not working).

Any update on this?

Cheers,

Pedro Amorim

[Hayden Young]

Hi Pedro

Would you be able to contribute your fixes back to the DSpace Drupal project (or you can send me the code and I'll arrange a pull request) and then we'll take a look at the mapping/parsing problems.

Btw, do you know what version of DSpace Drupal module you are using?

Thanks


Hayden

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[Layale Bassil]

Dear All,

 

Any luck using the new DSpace to Drupal module? I have downloded the one “dspace-7.x-2.x-dev” under https://www.drupal.org/node/1316642/release and installed it on Drupal and did the settings as per the README file. And I saved an xml file out of DSpace by calling the REST API to get the list of items inside a certain collection (https://{dspaceurl}/rest/collections/6/items/). However when I access the /import section of Drupal and select the extracted xml file from DSpace and try to import it, I get that “There are no new nodes.”.

 

I believe someone has modified the code in order to fix this issue, can you please help here?

 

Or explain to me what wrong I am doing?

 

Many thanks,

Regards.

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[Henry Umansky]

Hello Layale,

I’m one of the maintainers for the DSpace-Drupal module. It has recently come to my attention that the module doesn’t work with the DSpace 5.x REST API. After further troubleshooting, it looks like the latest version of the API sends the data as JSON output by default. Earlier versions of the Drupal module could only handle XML output. We plan to refactor the module so that it can handle both formats and utilized the updated DC metadata format, but for now both branches are completely useless for the latest version of DSpace.

Once I fix this issue, I would be interested in hearing where this community would like to see the Drupal module headed. Help me define the roadmap.

-Henry

[Layale Bassil]

Hello Henry,

 

Thank you so much for your prompt response. However I thought this last version is compatible with Dspace 5.x as per Mr. Michael Guthrie (We will be releasing the upgraded version to 5.x sometime this month. We have it in production already onhttp://bora.hib.no and some headless archives, but just need to package it up and add it to the wiki.)

 

Did I misunderstand the above or even this customized version is still not valid with the latest Dspace 5.x version?

 

I hope you can inform me when the newly working module will be released.

 

Many thanks,

Regards.

[Henry Umansky]

Michael was recently added as one of the module’s maintainers. We are collaborating in order to get the Drupal module working. 

-Henry

[Layale Bassil]

Hello Henry,

 

Hope all is good. Sorry to bother again, but I would like to know if there is any update regarding the DSpace-Drupal module for DSpace 5.x? we need a front end for our database (DSpace 5.2 is used in our case) and we thought of Drupal. If the module will not be ready in the near future, any other suggestion about a possible front end used by libraries around the world that are compatible with DSpace and provide the same functionality as Drupal?

 

Your help and cooperation is very much appreciated.

 

Many thanks,

Regards.

 

Layale Bassil

Software Engineer – Business Analyst

IT Solutions Delivery Department

 

[Layale Bassil]

Hello All,

 

I have been trying to know if there is any update regarding the DSpace-Drupal module but no luck!

 

If anyone can give me an update I will appreciate it!

 

One more thing, I need your suggestion about any possible front-end interface other than Drupal that can read from DSpace and display them.

 

Thank you and Regards,

 

Layale Bassil

Software Engineer – Business Analyst

IT Solutions Delivery Department

 

American University of Beirut

Office of Information Technology
P.O.Box 11-0236
Riad El-Solh, Beirut 1107 2020, Lebanon

T: +961 (1) 350000 x 3649 | M: +961 (03) 929876
E: lb...@aub.edu.lb

W . Fb . Fl . T . Y . L . IT

 

Think Green... Keep it on the Screen… Save a Tree... 

 

 

From: dspace-c...@googlegroups.com [mailto:dspace-c...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Michael Guthrie

Sent: Friday, October 09, 2015 12:24 PM
To: DSpace Community

[Hayden Young]

Hi Layale

One more thing, I need your suggestion about any possible front-end interface other than Drupal that can read from DSpace and display them.

this is possible with JCar for Joomla. See bora.hib.no for an example of DSpace records being displayed in Joomla.

Thanks


Hayden

[Michael Guthrie]

Hi Layale

As Hayden said, the Joomla integration is very far along. We are trying to get to the DSpace module fixed and working well, but it takes a back seat often to the other work we have on, but it is a priority.

Kind regards,

Michael

------------------------

Michael Guthrie

mic...@knowledgearc.com

http://knowledgearc.com

[Mckeane Thomas]

Is there any update since on this?

[Claudia Jürgen]

Hello,

we are not working with Drupal, but there have been efforts like:
https://www.drupal.org/project/dspace

Hope this helps

Claudia Jürgen

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Eldorado

Technische Universität Dortmund
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