Re: [Dspace-general] [Dspace-tech] IMPORTANT NEWS: Important Info for Future Editions | Ranking Web of Repositories
Hi Hilton, Looking at their proposal I can see that as an institution we’ll be excluded on at least 3 points, assuming that they meant to finish point 4 with “will be excluded”. 4) Repositories using ports others than 80 or 8080 5) Institutional repositories that use the name of the software in the host name will be excluded. 6) Institutional repositories that use more than 4 directory levels for the URL address of the full texts will be excluded. We’ll be excluded by point 4 as we use https rather than http (there is a redirect on http that bounces visitors to the https site). We’ll be excluded by point 5 as our repository has a hostname of dspace. Finally we’ll be excluded by point 6 as our setup has 5 directories to the full text. But looking at what actually is important here, which I believe to be the visibility of our repository’s content, I found myself ruling out making any changes to comply with their proposal. If we switch to http as suggested by their point 4 then we’ll actually worsen our position in Google search results. From the point of view of point 5 I can’t see anyway to justify the workload required to switch hostnames and keep all the legacy links working (if we let the old links break then our visibility will definitely decrease). Finally trying to do anything about point 6 would require extensive changes to our DSpace configuration and code (and the same large workload to keep the legacy links working). In other words our repository’s visibility will be negatively affected if we try to complying with their new proposal. Regards, Jason Cooper. From: Hilton Gibson [mailto:hilton.gib...@gmail.com] Sent: 01 September 2014 19:01 To: dspace-tech; General List Subject: [Dspace-tech] IMPORTANT NEWS: Important Info for Future Editions | Ranking Web of Repositories The Ranking is also a powerful tool for penalizing bad practices, with especial emphasis in the awful naming proposals by software developers that ignore librarian traditions and in many ways are going against intellectual rights of depositing authors. We truly believe the lengthy and useless addresses coined for the repository items have a negative impact in their web visibility and affect the authors will to deposit as it makes difficult the citation of full texts in future papers. http://repositories.webometrics.info/en/node/26 Hi All Sorry for the cross-posting How will this affect DSpace installations? Regards hg -- Slashdot TV. Video for Nerds. Stuff that matters. http://tv.slashdot.org/___ Dspace-general mailing list Dspace-general@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dspace-general
Re: [Dspace-general] [Dspace-tech] IMPORTANT NEWS: Important Info for Future Editions | Ranking Web of Repositories
Points 4, 6 and 7 reveal a profound lack of understanding of hypertext and fundamental security issues, and I would not be surprised to learn that they ignore typical user behavior as well. Does anyone but a sysadmin. or developer really type in direct URLs to repository content? Citations please. I would argue that we can better do without appearing in the Ranking Web of Repositories, whatever that is, than to give up the ability to protect our users' credentials. (Point 4, which disallows HTTPS) Point 5 is just bizarre. Why does someone think this is a problem? Not that I think it particularly useful to use the name of supporting software in naming a repository service, but how can it possibly hurt? Are there any actual statistics to support the belief that long URLs in the interior of a service actually affect anyone's behavior? It sounds like there should be some discussion among the various parties. Where? -- Mark H. Wood Lead Technology Analyst University Library Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis 755 W. Michigan Street Indianapolis, IN 46202 317-274-0749 www.ulib.iupui.edu signature.asc Description: Digital signature -- Slashdot TV. Video for Nerds. Stuff that matters. http://tv.slashdot.org/___ Dspace-general mailing list Dspace-general@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dspace-general
Re: [Dspace-general] [Dspace-tech] IMPORTANT NEWS: Important Info for Future Editions | Ranking Web of Repositories
Hi, there is more cause for concern than just the handle issue (which is alarming enough), re-read the announcement: http://repositories.webometrics.info/en/node/26 They intend to no longer rank repositories running on ports that are not cleartext (80 or 8080) which, I'm sorry, is completely wrong-headed. I will not ask my users to send their passwords in the clear. It's not even open for discussion. Even if we set aside the issue of login details, I am willing to bet there are a fair contingent of researchers who would prefer to keep their research activities out of a cleartext channel--despite the many concerns about SSL being compromised, running a repository on port 443 is, I think, at least a good-faith effort at securing the usage of the repository. Is this port requirement an attempt to penalize institutions who embargo some of their content? If that's Webometrics' desire, they will have to make a better effort than to lump all port 443 repositories into that category. It's a pity, I realize they have good intentions, but I think these decisions will likely diminish the relevance of their rankings. --Hardy From: TAYLOR Robin [robin.tay...@ed.ac.uk] Sent: Tuesday, September 02, 2014 5:42 AM To: Hilton Gibson; dspace-tech; General List Subject: Re: [Dspace-tech] IMPORTANT NEWS: Important Info for Future Editions | Ranking Web of Repositories Hi Hilton, It looks like a large proportion of DSpace instances would be excluded if this proposal were implemented. It seems a bit over the top, I think we may reply with a comment to that effect. Cheers, Robin. Robin Taylor Main Library University of Edinburgh From: Hilton Gibson hilton.gib...@gmail.com Sent: 01 September 2014 19:01 To: dspace-tech; General List Subject: [Dspace-tech] IMPORTANT NEWS: Important Info for Future Editions | Ranking Web of Repositories The Ranking is also a powerful tool for penalizing bad practices, with especial emphasis in the awful naming proposals by software developers that ignore librarian traditions and in many ways are going against intellectual rights of depositing authors. We truly believe the lengthy and useless addresses coined for the repository items have a negative impact in their web visibility and affect the authors will to deposit as it makes difficult the citation of full texts in future papers. http://repositories.webometrics.info/en/node/26 Hi All Sorry for the cross-posting How will this affect DSpace installations? Regards hg -- Slashdot TV. Video for Nerds. Stuff that matters. http://tv.slashdot.org/___ Dspace-general mailing list Dspace-general@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dspace-general
Re: [Dspace-general] [Dspace-tech] IMPORTANT NEWS: Important Info for Future Editions | Ranking Web of Repositories
Would it be possible for DuraSpace leadership to contact them to explain the problems with their proposal? I agree that this seems only likely to diminish the relevance of their rankings. Sarah Sarah L. Shreeves IDEALS Coordinator – http://ideals.illinois.edu/ Scholarly Commons Co-Coordinator – http://library.illinois.edu/sc/ Associate Professor, University Library University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign sshre...@illinois.edumailto:sshre...@illinois.edu 217-244-3877 From: Pottinger, Hardy J. [mailto:pottinge...@missouri.edu] Sent: Tuesday, September 02, 2014 9:32 AM To: TAYLOR Robin; Hilton Gibson; dspace-tech; General List Subject: Re: [Dspace-tech] IMPORTANT NEWS: Important Info for Future Editions | Ranking Web of Repositories Hi, there is more cause for concern than just the handle issue (which is alarming enough), re-read the announcement: http://repositories.webometrics.info/en/node/26 They intend to no longer rank repositories running on ports that are not cleartext (80 or 8080) which, I'm sorry, is completely wrong-headed. I will not ask my users to send their passwords in the clear. It's not even open for discussion. Even if we set aside the issue of login details, I am willing to bet there are a fair contingent of researchers who would prefer to keep their research activities out of a cleartext channel--despite the many concerns about SSL being compromised, running a repository on port 443 is, I think, at least a good-faith effort at securing the usage of the repository. Is this port requirement an attempt to penalize institutions who embargo some of their content? If that's Webometrics' desire, they will have to make a better effort than to lump all port 443 repositories into that category. It's a pity, I realize they have good intentions, but I think these decisions will likely diminish the relevance of their rankings. --Hardy From: TAYLOR Robin [robin.tay...@ed.ac.uk] Sent: Tuesday, September 02, 2014 5:42 AM To: Hilton Gibson; dspace-tech; General List Subject: Re: [Dspace-tech] IMPORTANT NEWS: Important Info for Future Editions | Ranking Web of Repositories Hi Hilton, It looks like a large proportion of DSpace instances would be excluded if this proposal were implemented. It seems a bit over the top, I think we may reply with a comment to that effect. Cheers, Robin. Robin Taylor Main Library University of Edinburgh From: Hilton Gibson hilton.gib...@gmail.commailto:hilton.gib...@gmail.com Sent: 01 September 2014 19:01 To: dspace-tech; General List Subject: [Dspace-tech] IMPORTANT NEWS: Important Info for Future Editions | Ranking Web of Repositories The Ranking is also a powerful tool for penalizing bad practices, with especial emphasis in the awful naming proposals by software developers that ignore librarian traditions and in many ways are going against intellectual rights of depositing authors. We truly believe the lengthy and useless addresses coined for the repository items have a negative impact in their web visibility and affect the authors will to deposit as it makes difficult the citation of full texts in future papers. http://repositories.webometrics.info/en/node/26 Hi All Sorry for the cross-posting How will this affect DSpace installations? Regards hg -- Slashdot TV. Video for Nerds. Stuff that matters. http://tv.slashdot.org/___ Dspace-general mailing list Dspace-general@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dspace-general
Re: [Dspace-general] [Dspace-tech] IMPORTANT NEWS: Important Info for Future Editions | Ranking Web of Repositories
This odd collection of guidelines makes Webometrics lose credibility in my book. i.e. Google / Google Scholar indexing guidelines is all anyone should be paying attention to. Regarding #5 (software name in hostname). Should MIT be reconsidering the use of dspace.mit.edu ?? They have a very good historical reason to continue using that domain. #4 (insecure), #6 (four directory levels), #7 (numeric codes) are especially bizarre. Is their ideal repository just a url shortening service? And do they oppose the use of handle/doi, since including those in the url increases the length. Also, one reason for leaving ssl on all the time is so that nobody is altering the information being transferred. i.e. You could have an abusive ISP that alters the response by adding/removing information from a response. And since the payload is sent in cleartext, this abusive ISP is able to spy/monitor your activity, and manipulate the result once you encounter the content their trying to censor. Do you want repositories to be stuck in the realm of untrustable-repositories? My experience with this is that the public wifi at a local hospital filters your internet so that you can't actually look up medical information. (Wouldn't want the public to be an instant expert, and second guessing the medical staff, I'm guessing). Solution: Turn on SSL, leave it on, always. Do they have a proposal to alleviate these issues of awful naming proposals by software developers that ignore librarian traditions. I'm guessing they're also against IPv6, since it makes IP addresses too long to type, because I'm always typing in IP addresses... I don't think the internet needs to be rearchitected by well intended folks at webometrics. Sure, we could look at condensing things to just whats neccessary, to assist with making a citable link directly to bitstreams. But isn't that what handles/doi's are for? Peter Dietz Longsight www.longsight.com pe...@longsight.com p: 740-599-5005 x809 On Tue, Sep 2, 2014 at 10:28 AM, Mark H. Wood mw...@iupui.edu wrote: Points 4, 6 and 7 reveal a profound lack of understanding of hypertext and fundamental security issues, and I would not be surprised to learn that they ignore typical user behavior as well. Does anyone but a sysadmin. or developer really type in direct URLs to repository content? Citations please. I would argue that we can better do without appearing in the Ranking Web of Repositories, whatever that is, than to give up the ability to protect our users' credentials. (Point 4, which disallows HTTPS) Point 5 is just bizarre. Why does someone think this is a problem? Not that I think it particularly useful to use the name of supporting software in naming a repository service, but how can it possibly hurt? Are there any actual statistics to support the belief that long URLs in the interior of a service actually affect anyone's behavior? It sounds like there should be some discussion among the various parties. Where? -- Mark H. Wood Lead Technology Analyst University Library Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis 755 W. Michigan Street Indianapolis, IN 46202 317-274-0749 www.ulib.iupui.edu -- Slashdot TV. Video for Nerds. Stuff that matters. http://tv.slashdot.org/ ___ DSpace-tech mailing list dspace-t...@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dspace-tech List Etiquette: https://wiki.duraspace.org/display/DSPACE/Mailing+List+Etiquette -- Slashdot TV. Video for Nerds. Stuff that matters. http://tv.slashdot.org/___ Dspace-general mailing list Dspace-general@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dspace-general
Re: [Dspace-general] [Dspace-tech] IMPORTANT NEWS: Important Info for Future Editions | Ranking Web of Repositories
Hi, Brian. The EFF.org free https-everywhere plugin probably has an answer to your question. https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere But, the gist of it is, in some situations, merely reading the content of the traffic is the desired attack vector. Though, realistically, if there's a strong concern on the part of the researcher that they are the target of such attacks, they're much better off utilizing some other method of obscuring their traffic details than just relying on SSL. The EFF.org site talks about specifics in this regard. SSL in this day and age is merely a good faith effort to discourage casual/unsophisticated eavesdropping. --Hardy From: Brian Freels-Stendel [bfre...@unm.edu] Sent: Tuesday, September 02, 2014 9:56 AM To: dspace-tech; General List Subject: Re: [Dspace-tech] IMPORTANT NEWS: Important Info for Future Editions | Ranking Web of Repositories It’s certainly vital to secure login credentials, but what benefit does securing random content viewing provide? If content is available without authentication, I’m not seeing how a secure connection factors into the equation. (E.g., there’s no point to hijacking the connection, there are no credentials to steal, there is no extra content available.) I would think that, as long as the repo is available on ports 80/8080, it would be immaterial that logging in requires port 443. I’m hoping that this point isn’t an actual problem for most of us. B— From: Shreeves, Sarah L [mailto:sshre...@illinois.edu] Sent: Tuesday, September 02, 2014 8:37 AM To: Pottinger, Hardy J.; TAYLOR Robin; Hilton Gibson; dspace-tech; General List Subject: Re: [Dspace-tech] IMPORTANT NEWS: Important Info for Future Editions | Ranking Web of Repositories Would it be possible for DuraSpace leadership to contact them to explain the problems with their proposal? I agree that this seems only likely to diminish the relevance of their rankings. Sarah Sarah L. Shreeves IDEALS Coordinator – http://ideals.illinois.edu/ Scholarly Commons Co-Coordinator – http://library.illinois.edu/sc/ Associate Professor, University Library University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign sshre...@illinois.edumailto:sshre...@illinois.edu 217-244-3877 From: Pottinger, Hardy J. [mailto:pottinge...@missouri.edu] Sent: Tuesday, September 02, 2014 9:32 AM To: TAYLOR Robin; Hilton Gibson; dspace-tech; General List Subject: Re: [Dspace-tech] IMPORTANT NEWS: Important Info for Future Editions | Ranking Web of Repositories Hi, there is more cause for concern than just the handle issue (which is alarming enough), re-read the announcement: http://repositories.webometrics.info/en/node/26 They intend to no longer rank repositories running on ports that are not cleartext (80 or 8080) which, I'm sorry, is completely wrong-headed. I will not ask my users to send their passwords in the clear. It's not even open for discussion. Even if we set aside the issue of login details, I am willing to bet there are a fair contingent of researchers who would prefer to keep their research activities out of a cleartext channel--despite the many concerns about SSL being compromised, running a repository on port 443 is, I think, at least a good-faith effort at securing the usage of the repository. Is this port requirement an attempt to penalize institutions who embargo some of their content? If that's Webometrics' desire, they will have to make a better effort than to lump all port 443 repositories into that category. It's a pity, I realize they have good intentions, but I think these decisions will likely diminish the relevance of their rankings. --Hardy From: TAYLOR Robin [robin.tay...@ed.ac.uk] Sent: Tuesday, September 02, 2014 5:42 AM To: Hilton Gibson; dspace-tech; General List Subject: Re: [Dspace-tech] IMPORTANT NEWS: Important Info for Future Editions | Ranking Web of Repositories Hi Hilton, It looks like a large proportion of DSpace instances would be excluded if this proposal were implemented. It seems a bit over the top, I think we may reply with a comment to that effect. Cheers, Robin. Robin Taylor Main Library University of Edinburgh From: Hilton Gibson hilton.gib...@gmail.commailto:hilton.gib...@gmail.com Sent: 01 September 2014 19:01 To: dspace-tech; General List Subject: [Dspace-tech] IMPORTANT NEWS: Important Info for Future Editions | Ranking Web of Repositories The Ranking is also a powerful tool for penalizing bad practices, with especial emphasis in the awful naming proposals by software developers that ignore librarian traditions and in many ways are going against intellectual rights of depositing authors. We truly believe the lengthy and useless addresses coined for the repository items have a negative impact in their web visibility and affect the authors will to deposit as it makes difficult the citation of full texts in future papers.
Re: [Dspace-general] [Dspace-tech] IMPORTANT NEWS: Important Info for Future Editions | Ranking Web of Repositories
Hi All, Thanks for the notifications here great analysis! DuraSpace is tracking all these points/analysis and we've come up with a few additional ones (see below). I fully agree that the newly proposed Webometrics standards are not ideal as they will accidentally exclude a large portion of DSpace sites. DuraSpace will be drafting up a response to detail the response to these newly proposed guidelines: http://repositories.webometrics.info/en/node/26 Some of the highest concerns have already been rightly pointed out by all of you: * Rule #2 (IRs that don't use the institutional domain will be excluded) would cause the exclusion of some IRs which are hosted by service providers. As an example, some DSpaceDirect users have URLs https://*.dspacedirect.org which would cause their exclusion as it is a non-institutional domain. Other hosting providers have similar non-institutional domain URLs. * Rule #4 (Repositories using ports other than 80 or 8080) would wrongly exclude all DSpace sites which use HTTPS (port 443). * Rule #5 (IRs that use the name of the software in the hostname would be excluded) may also affect IRs which are hosted by service providers (like DSpaceDirect). Again, some DSpaceDirect customers have URLs which use *.dspacedirect.org (includes dspace). This rule would also exclude MIT's IR which is the original DSpace: http://dspace.mit.edu/ * Rule #6 (IRs that use more than 4 directory levels for the URL address of the full texts will be excluded.) may exclude a large number of DSpace sites. The common download URLs for full text in DSpace are both are at least 4 directory levels deep: - XMLUI: [dspace-url]/bitstream/handle/[prefix]/[id]/[filename] - JSPUI: [dspace-url]/bitstream/[prefix]/[id]/[sequence]/[filename] * Rule #7 (IRs that use more than 3 different numeric (or useless) codes in their URLs will be excluded.). It is unclear how they would determine this, and what the effect may be on DSpace sites worldwide. Again, looking at the common DSpace URL paths above, if a file had a numeric name, it may be excluded as DSpace URLs already include 2-3 numeric codes by default ([prefix],[id], and [sequence] are all numeric). * Rule #8 (IRs with more than 50% of the records not linking to OA full text versions..). Again, unclear how they would determine this, and whether the way they are doing so would accidentally exclude some major DSpace sites. For example, there are major DSpace sites which include a larger number of Theses/Dissertations. These Theses/Dissertations may not be 100% Open Access to the world, but may be fully accessible everyone on campus. Again, DuraSpace will work on a response. As you can see from my points above, we are already in the midst of drafting one. If I've missed any additional points, please do feel free to forward them my way! - Tim -- Slashdot TV. Video for Nerds. Stuff that matters. http://tv.slashdot.org/ ___ Dspace-general mailing list Dspace-general@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dspace-general
Re: [Dspace-general] [Dspace-tech] IMPORTANT NEWS: Important Info for Future Editions | Ranking Web of Repositories
Dear colleagues, As editor of the Ranking web of repositories I published the referred info in order to open debate about issues that are in my humble opinion concerning for the future of repositories. As my email address is clearly stated in the webpage I do not understand why you decided not consider my position and explanations in the debate. I am going to answer the specific points introduced by Mark Wood and of course open not only to further discussions but to modify my proposals accordingly. From: Mark H. Wood mw...@iupui.edu Date: 2 September 2014 16:28 Subject: Re: [Dspace-tech] IMPORTANT NEWS: Important Info for Future Editions | Ranking Web of Repositories To: dspace-t...@lists.sourceforge.net, General List dspace-general@lists.sourceforge.net Points 4, 6 and 7 reveal a profound lack of understanding of hypertext and fundamental security issues, and I would not be surprised to learn that they ignore typical user behavior as well. Does anyone but a sysadmin. or developer really type in direct URLs to repository content? Citations please. Point 4. In many academic institutions the access to ports other than standards is forbidden due to security reasons. If you use other the contents are invisible to the people accesing from that university. Point 6 y 7. Explain me why .../handle/556/78/6789 is better than .../thesis/physics/Wood2013b and why aliasing is not possible. Probably authors will cite the URL of their deposited files in their published papers, but with this awful, lengthy, useless address they probably prefer not to do Depositing papers increase their visibility if other authors can locate easily them for example in Google. Do you know the advantages of URL semantic content for improving position in Google? There are thousands of papers about academic SEO I would argue that we can better do without appearing in the Ranking Web of Repositories, whatever that is, than to give up the ability to protect our users' credentials. (Point 4, which disallows HTTPS) Are you mixing public and private sections? You can protect your users without destroying visibility Point 5 is just bizarre. Why does someone think this is a problem? Not that I think it particularly useful to use the name of supporting software in naming a repository service, but how can it possibly hurt? The repository is the probably the most important part of the intellectual treasure of the university and their authors, You are simply proposing to honour the continent instead of the content. Are there any actual statistics to support the belief that long URLs in the interior of a service actually affect anyone's behavior? Interior is irrelevant, the contents of the repository are for the end-users that are sysadmin but the institution authors and authors and readers from the rest of the world. We are talking of Open Access and in my opinion the referred issues are barriers to the open. It sounds like there should be some discussion among the various parties. Where? As mentioned before here I am for further comments. Thanks for your cooperation. -- Mark H. Wood Lead Technology Analyst University Library Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis 755 W. Michigan Street Indianapolis, IN 46202 317-274-0749 www.ulib.iupui.edu -- Slashdot TV. Video for Nerds. Stuff that matters. http://tv.slashdot.org/ ___ DSpace-tech mailing list dspace-t...@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dspace-tech List Etiquette: https://wiki.duraspace.org/display/DSPACE/Mailing+List+Etiquette -- Isidro F. Aguillo, HonPhD Cybermetrics Lab (3C1). CCHS - CSIC Albasanz, 26-28. 28037 Madrid. Spain isidro.aguillo @ cchs.csic.es www. webometrics.info -- Slashdot TV. Video for Nerds. Stuff that matters. http://tv.slashdot.org/ ___ Dspace-general mailing list Dspace-general@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/dspace-general
