Proposed Student Projects

Dryad occasionally has the opportunity to work with student interns through projects like the Google Summer of Code and the DataONE internship program. This page collects ideas for projects that are suitable for student work. All of these projects provide valuable progress for Dryad. They are relatively self-contained projects, requiring a minimal amount of background knowledge before the student is able to make a meaningful contribution.

Small tasks from the current development queue

Below is a list of student-accessible projects culled from the current development queue. It may be outdated, as items are continually moved into and out of the queue:

• FEAT: package-level metadata editing (propagate changes to files) https://trello.com/c/lAryQSGp
• FEAT: Public journal/publisher pages https://trello.com/c/f5EVVDyk
• FEAT: Improve robustness of build/deploy process https://trello.com/c/5wXNaSi0
• FEAT: detect items with inappropriate embargo settings https://trello.com/c/YfHWSQfM
• BUG: PMID lookup problems https://trello.com/c/pF5KOio5
• FEAT: automate weekly integration reports to journals https://trello.com/c/Goddbwr2
• FEAT: automate weekly summary reports https://trello.com/c/vsCMaBqY
• FEAT: Display of non-DOI identifiers https://trello.com/c/M1qdfd59
• FEAT: VM image with basic Dryad install https://trello.com/c/OPcgXpTt
• FEAT: Improve curation report for profileformats https://trello.com/c/31zurH4g
• FEAT: Author order - allowing easier reordering of author names during deposit https://trello.com/c/J6SZuofk
• FEAT: Altmetrics for data packages https://trello.com/c/7TVeLJNK

Processing data packages with SWORD and ORE

Extend the DSpace SWORD interface to support BagIt data packages OAI-ORE descriptions. Upon receiving a package with an OAI-ORE description, it should be able to generate the equivalent data package and data files in the submission system. Extend the existing BagIt exporter to create equivalent packages for export purposes.

Proposed as a project for the 2012 Phyloinformatics Summer of Code.

Notes:

• DSpace's Replication Task Suite has code for working with BagIt objects (beyond the BagIt transformer that is specific to Dryad).
• People who may be interested in collaborating:
  • Stuart Lewis (SWORD)
  • Hardy Pottinger (U Missouri-Rolla) was planning to build similar technology
  • Marco Fabiani (Queen Mary University of London) is looking for similar technology

Importing metadata from authoritative sources

History:

1. HAMR was conceived during a hackathon at the 2011 Code4Lib conference.
2. Proposed as a project to the 2012 DSpace Summer of Code, but the organization was not accepted.
3. Proposed (in slightly more general form) as a project for the Rose-Hulman Senior Project program.
4. In 2013, re-designed as project more deeply integrated with DSpace, added to the Dryad development schedule.

Build a tool that allows curators to compare DSpace metadata with metadata from authoritative sources. The tool will allow curators to see DSpace metadata alongside metadata from a system such as CrossRef or PubMed. Individual metadata fields will be color-coded according to the degree of consistency. Curators will be able to click a button for each metadata field they wish to import from the authoritative source.

Improving the Dryad API

Implement the proposal for a new Dryad API.

Generating Reports

Develop more reports that are needed from the list of Curator Reports.

Improve the process for generating statistics associated with Dryad. There are two types of statistics, those associated with periodic reports to stakeholders (e.g., board meetings, annual reports to funders), and those associated with the Global Statistics Display.

Publish Dryad Metadata as LOD

This goal includes 1.) registering Dryad-specific + relevant properties at an appropriate Dryad name space (e.g., datadryad.org), so that Dryad metadata published as linked data can resolve. 2.) generating current Dryad metadata (where appropriate) as linked data, following on the DataONE LOD4DataONE work completed by Aida Gandara https://notebooks.dataone.org/lod4dataone/author/aida-gandara/ [summer 2011].

Dryad Metadata DCAP (Dublin Core Application Profile)

Follow on the initial DCAP work generated for Dryad AP 2.0 to the current 3.0 version and publish the work as a DCAP compliant with the DCMI Singapore Framework. This could be integrated into the LOD project noted above

HIVE and Dbpedia comparison for indexing Dryad holdings

Compare HIVE vocabularies and Dbpedia's underlying terminology for indexing Dryad content. A mapping experiment with Dryad's current search logs might also be considered.

Name authority control / Orcid work

more later..

Lingering Issues

The Dryad issue-tracking system contains many issues that have not been resolved. Many of these issues could be addressed by a student. A student could approach these issues in two ways:

1. Identify individual issues that are tractable and solve them. These issues include problems like minor usability tweaks and documentation needs.
2. Identify classes of issues that occur frequently. Develop tools/processes to either prevent these issues or to solve these issues as they occur.