ORCA-Registry Software
The Online Research Collections Australia (ORCA)-Registry software is a product of the Australian Partnership for Sustainable Repositories (APSR) Collection Services and Infrastructures (COSI) initiatives of 2007. ORCA-Registry software is now being utilised and further developed by the Utilities Program of the Australian National Data Service (ANDS).
Overview
The ORCA-Registry is a PHP/PostgreSQL web application designed to be housed in an instance of the COSI-Framework (see the COSI-Framework documentation for more information).
Figure 1 (below) provides a conceptual overview of the application design.
Figure 1: Overview of the ORCA-Registry.
The registry is a database containing Registry Object records along with some information to support the gathering of this data from data providers via their Data Sources.
Registry Object records are one of four classes describing a Collection, Service, Party, or Activity. These records are defined using the Registry Interchange Format?Collections and Services (RIF-CS, an XML schema based on that provided in the ISO 2146 draft standard).
The basic operation of the registry software can be described as follows. An organisation has data (usually housed in a repository of some description, though not necessarily) that they wish to be discoverable by users of the registry. They (the data providers) request that the owners of the registry configure their organisation?s repository as a Data Source in the registry. The registry owners configure the Data Source; issuing a key (which is unique within the registry, and taking an agreed form); setting a URI for where to find the data that the data providers will expose; and creating roles to allow the data providers to manage and test their Data Source against the registry. The data providers now need to provide XML conforming to the RIF?CS at the URI set for their Data Source (forming a Repository Interface for the Metadata Export box in Figure 1). The data can now be imported into the registry, where it will be discoverable by search and browse, and exposed by web services.
Version 2 of the registry extends this functionality by providing support for Harvester 1.0. If a harvester is configured, then the registry can use it to schedule recurring harvests, and to harvest data from OAI-PMH data providers that support the RIF?CS (which includes other instances of the ORCA-Registry v2.x software).
Example Installation
The Australian National Data Service (ANDS) Pilot Collections Registry.
Note that the SSL certificate for this site has been self-issued by the Australian Partnership For Sustainable Repositories (APSR) and not a trusted authority. This means that your web browser will probably warn you about this when you connect. You should simply tell your web browser to continue to the website (you can inspect the certificate if you wish)
Documentation
| COSI-Framework v1.2.5 Documentation |  |
| COSI-Framework v1.2 Testing | |
| ORCA-Registry v2.4.1 Documentation | |
| ORCA-Registry v2.4.1 DatabaseSchema | |
| ORCA-Registry v2.0 Testing | |
Software
Browser Requirements
COSI-Framework and ORCA-Registry have been tested with the following web browsers:
- Firefox 2 on Mac OS X 10.4
- Safari 2 on Mac OS X 10.4
- Firefox 3 on Mac OS X 10.5
- Safari 3 on Mac OS X 10.5
- Firefox 2 on Windows XP SP2
- Firefox 3 on Windows XP SP3
- Internet Explorer 7 on Windows XP SP2
Installation Requirements
COSI-Framework Minimum
- A web server (tested on Apache 2.2.8).
- PHP (tested on version 5.2.5) configured with pgsql, libxml 2.6.31, libxslt 1.1.22, ldap and open ssl.
- PostgreSQL (tested on version 8.3.x).
COSI-Framework Optional
- SSL (recommended).
- An LDAP server.
ORCA-Registry Minimum
- An instance of the COSI v1.2.2 framework.
- PostgreSQL 8.3.x.
ORCA-Registry Optional
To support scheduled harvest and harvest via OAI-PMH you will need an instance of the Harvester v1.0 service.
Downloads
| cosi.1.2.6.zip |  |
| cosi-orca.3.0.zip | |