EPrints
Encyclopedia
EPrints is a free
and open source software
package for building open access repositories that are compliant with the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting
. It shares many of the features commonly seen in Document Management systems, but is primarily used for institutional repositories and scientific journals. EPrints has been developed at the University of Southampton School of Electronics and Computer Science and released under a GPL license.
The EPrints software is not to be confused with "eprint
s" (or "e-prints"), which are preprint
s (before peer review
) and postprints
(after peer review), of research journal articles: "eprints" = preprint
s + postprints.
The EPrints software was enthusiastically received and became the first and one of the most widely used free open access, institutional repository software, and it has since inspired the development of other software that fulfil a similar purpose.
Version 3 of the software was officially released on the 24th January 2007 at the Open Repositories 2007 Conference and was described by its developers as "a major leap forward in functionality, giving even more control and flexibility to repository managers, depositors, researchers and technical administrators." http://www.eprints.org/software/v3/
architecture (but is written in Perl
rather than PHP
). It has been successfully run under Linux
, Solaris and Mac OS X
http://www.eprints.org/documentation/tech/php/intro.php. A version for Microsoft Windows
was released 17th May 2010 http://files.eprints.org/544/.
Version 3 of the software introduced a (Perl-based) plugin architecture for importing and exporting data, converting objects (for search engine indexing) and user interface widgets.
Configuring an EPrints repository involves modifying configuration files written in Perl
or XML
. The appearance of a repository is controlled by HTML templates, CSS
stylesheets and inline images. While EPrints is shipped with an English translation it has been translated to other languages through (redistributable) language-specific XML phrase files. Existing translations include Bulgarian, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Russian, Spanish and Ukrainian. http://files.eprints.org/view/type/translation.html.
Free software
Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...
and open source software
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
package for building open access repositories that are compliant with the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting
Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting
OAI-PMH is a protocol developed by the Open Archives Initiative. It is used to harvest the metadata descriptions of the records in an archive so that services can be built using metadata from many archives...
. It shares many of the features commonly seen in Document Management systems, but is primarily used for institutional repositories and scientific journals. EPrints has been developed at the University of Southampton School of Electronics and Computer Science and released under a GPL license.
The EPrints software is not to be confused with "eprint
Eprint
An eprint is a digital version of a research document that is accessible online, whether from a local Institutional, or...
s" (or "e-prints"), which are preprint
Preprint
A preprint is a draft of a scientific paper that has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.-Role:Publication of manuscripts in a peer-reviewed journal often takes weeks, months or even years from the time of initial submission, because manuscripts must undergo extensive...
s (before peer review
Peer review
Peer review is a process of self-regulation by a profession or a process of evaluation involving qualified individuals within the relevant field. Peer review methods are employed to maintain standards, improve performance and provide credibility...
) and postprints
Postprints
A postprint is a digital draft of a research journal article after it has been peer reviewed. A digital draft before peer review is called a preprint...
(after peer review), of research journal articles: "eprints" = preprint
Preprint
A preprint is a draft of a scientific paper that has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.-Role:Publication of manuscripts in a peer-reviewed journal often takes weeks, months or even years from the time of initial submission, because manuscripts must undergo extensive...
s + postprints.
History
EPrints was created in 2000 as a direct outcome of the 1999 Santa Fe meeting that launched what eventually became the OAI-PMH.The EPrints software was enthusiastically received and became the first and one of the most widely used free open access, institutional repository software, and it has since inspired the development of other software that fulfil a similar purpose.
Version 3 of the software was officially released on the 24th January 2007 at the Open Repositories 2007 Conference and was described by its developers as "a major leap forward in functionality, giving even more control and flexibility to repository managers, depositors, researchers and technical administrators." http://www.eprints.org/software/v3/
Technology
EPrints is a Web and command-line application based on the LAMPLAMP (software bundle)
LAMP is an acronym for a solution stack of free, open source software, referring to the first letters of Linux , Apache HTTP Server, MySQL and PHP , principal components to build a viable general purpose web server.The GNU project is advocating people to use the term "GLAMP" since what is known as...
architecture (but is written in Perl
Perl
Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions and become widely popular...
rather than PHP
PHP
PHP is a general-purpose server-side scripting language originally designed for web development to produce dynamic web pages. For this purpose, PHP code is embedded into the HTML source document and interpreted by a web server with a PHP processor module, which generates the web page document...
). It has been successfully run under Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
, Solaris and Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
http://www.eprints.org/documentation/tech/php/intro.php. A version for Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
was released 17th May 2010 http://files.eprints.org/544/.
Version 3 of the software introduced a (Perl-based) plugin architecture for importing and exporting data, converting objects (for search engine indexing) and user interface widgets.
Configuring an EPrints repository involves modifying configuration files written in Perl
Perl
Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions and become widely popular...
or XML
XML
Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....
. The appearance of a repository is controlled by HTML templates, CSS
CSS
-Computing:*Cascading Style Sheets, a language used to describe the style of document presentations in web development*Central Structure Store in the PHIGS 3D API*Closed source software, software that is not distributed with source code...
stylesheets and inline images. While EPrints is shipped with an English translation it has been translated to other languages through (redistributable) language-specific XML phrase files. Existing translations include Bulgarian, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Russian, Spanish and Ukrainian. http://files.eprints.org/view/type/translation.html.
External links
- EPrints Software
- EPrints Demonstration Site
- Openarchives.eu - The European Guide to OAI-PMH Digital Repositories in the World
- Peter Millington and William J. Nixon: EPrints 3 Pre-Launch Briefing HTML
- Open Repositories 2007 Conference Jan. 23-26, "Achieving Interoperability in an Open World" (EPrints Version 3 launch and workshop)