Repository Tools 2: EPrints as a data source

The EPrints data source is designed to allow Elements to harvest publications from your EPrints institutional repository into Elements via a Repository Tools 2 (RT2) integration. The RT2 repository data sources do not function in the same way at the publisher/aggregator data sources and it is important that they are set up and configured correctly.

Please ensure you do not enable this data source without following the preparation, crosswalking and configuration processes. We strongly recommend that all of these steps are first performed and tested in a Test environment before they are applied to your production instance of Elements.

Ensure your EPrints is a supported version and that the CRUD API and the OAI-PMH API have been enabled.

In order to feed information from your repository into Elements, we need to tell the systems how that data from the repository should appear in Elements. Essentially we specify how each piece of metadata we want to copy from the repository into Elements should be mapped from its repository value into an Elements field. We use a crosswalk map file to specify how these fields are mapped. To find out more about how to plan and prepare your harvest crosswalk review Repository Tools 2: Repository as Data Source and the Repository Tools 2: Defining Crosswalks Guide.

The final step is to configure Elements to use EPrints as a data source. See Repository Tools 2: Configuring EPrints for step-by-step instructions.

Eprints as a data source can be used as stand-alone functionality or form part of a full RT2 integration. Please note that RT2 integrations require a Repository Tools license, however use of EPrints as a data source alone does not. For more information about RT2 see the Repository Tools 2: Functional Overview.

Due to the fundamentally different approaches of Repository Tools 1 (RT1) and RT2, it is not possible to connect a single EPrints repository using RT1 and RT2 at the same time. If you are considering a repository integration please contact the Symplectic Support team to discuss the differences between the two different kinds of repository integrations to ensure you select the integration most appropriate for your needs. It is possible to have RT1 and RT2 integrations simultaneously where they are integrated with different repositories.

The EPrints data source integration has been designed to allow you to connect Elements to your own institution's dedicated EPrints institutional repository. It is not designed to connect Elements to EPrints repositories that do not belong to your institution; this is not a supported use of the functionality. The code behind the harvesting of data is optimised under the assumption that the harvested data are all outputs of your institution. Amongst other things, this enables us to infer more about the likelihood that any given repository item was authored by a member of your staff with a matching name, something that is critical to not overpopulating users' pending publication lists with inaccurate matches, and also not slowing down the Elements database with irrelevant publications. If you are interested in connecting to an instance of EPrints that contains shared content with other institutions, please discuss this with Symplectic to ascertain whether your particular usage is supported.

RT2 is compatible with EPrints 3.3.15 from Elements 5.6 onwards. However, before commencing an RT2 integration, we recommend that you upgrade to the latest Elements version to take advantage of features and functionality introduced in later versions.

RT2 is compatible with EPrints 3.4.0 and 3.4.1 from Elements 5.11 onwards. Note that, due to technical limitations, Automated Metadata Updates are not available in an integration with EPrints 3.4.0 or 3.4.1. RT2 is compatible with EPrints 3.4.2 and up from Elements 6.4 onwards, which restores support for Automated Metadata Updates.