The Hyku digital repository offers a healthy, growing list of features. This page outlines and describes the features, providing a brief but thorough overview of the application’s capabilities. The information is useful to anyone interested in learning more about Hyku or considering adopting Hyku.

See also:

Table of Contents

Modern Interface and Updated User Experience

  • Responsive interface – Displays clearly and is usable on the range of screen sizes and mobile devices.
  • Redesigned, consolidated dashboard – A single interface with advanced tooling to access all administrative and management tasks and reporting.

    Now in design:
  • Site home page
  • Public-facing search and browse pages
  • Collection pages
  • File management page
  • Reports pages

Content Types

Content of any variety is supported, and any file format can be uploaded. Hyku currently has two Work types available.

  • Generic Work  Hyku’s original model for any piece of content or “work”. Appropriate for any file type. Includes generic, broadly applicable descriptors and provides a menu of common Resource Type values which can be applied to characterize the nature of the content.
  • Image Work – The first distinct content type developed in Hyku. Similar to the Generic Work, with additional, optional descriptors particularly relevant to works featuring image-based content, such as photographs or illustrations, as distinct from text-based content, time-based media, dataset, etc. Plans to add support for enhanced sequencing and labeling files within an image work.

    Content types for future development:
  • Thesis
  • Conference Item
  • Dataset
  • Exam Paper
  • Journal Article
  • Published Work
  • OER

Content Deposit Options

There are three different ways to deposit content in Hyku.

  • Single work upload – Upload one or more files, or folders of files, from the desktop to create a single work.
    • A UI for configuring the ability to upload files from a cloud-based storage location is now in progress.
  • Batch work upload – Upload multiple files to create multiple works of the same work type.
  • Bulk import – Use a script to import content files from a directory and metadata in a corresponding file (CSV format) or the Bulkrax import/export gem.

    For future development:
  • Bulk editing and review of metadata
  • Improved mediated deposit workflow
  • Allow deposit of a work without files (metadata only) 

Deposit Workflow Options

Out of the box, Hyku offers two workflow configurations. Deposit workflow is configurable for each administrative set in Hyku. With back-end customization, the out-of-the-box options can be modified or other workflows can be added.

  • One-step deposit workflow (default) – the work is saved to the repository as it is submitted by the depositor.
  • Two-step (mediated) deposit workflow – the work is submitted by the depositor for review and approval before it is saved  to the repository.

Content Organization

Hyku is flexible in how content can be organized and arranged. There are 4 primary units of organization:

  • Work – A single organizational unit of content capable of containing 1 or more files or folders of files.
  • Nested works – Depositor may put deposited works in an arbitrary hierarchical arrangement.
  • Collection – Assemblage of one or more works. A collection can be created by a depositor for private use, shared with individual users or groups, the institution, or made publicly discoverable. A single work can be a member of one or more collections. Only required metadata is title, but full set of optional descriptive fields are available.
  • Nested Collections – Allowing hierarchical grouping and arrangement of works within an overarching collection 
  • Administrative set – An organizing mechanism of one or more works in the repository, providing settings to configure workflow as well as release and visibility for works in the set, and to assign users and groups to deposit and manage works in the set.

Content Management

Hyku offers a variety of features to help users manage their content.

  • Proxy Deposit – A depositor can designate another user to add works on their behalf, useful for busy people with supporting staff or collaborative teams. This setting can be disabled for the repository.
  • Transfer Ownership – A depositor can designate another user to take over management of a deposited work. This setting can be disabled for the repository.
  • Highlighted Work – A depositor can designate works to be highlighted on their User Profile.

    For future development:
  • Advanced version control for content files and metadata, maintaining version history as changes occur to files and works over time
  • Import existing access derivative files (by disabling automatic processing of derivatives from imported masters)

Descriptive Metadata

Hyku supports a set of 17 metadata elements for describing collections and works.  

  • Required fields – Title, Creator, Keyword, Rights statement
  • Optional fields –  Resource Type, Genre Contributor, License, Publisher, Date Created, Subject, Language, Identifier, Location, Related URL, Source, Extent
  • Based on standards – Mostly Dublin Core (elements and terms); also some FOAF, Library of Congress Relators, Europeana Data Model, and PREMIS
  • Linked data ready – Values stored in Fedora as a graph of RDF triples.
  • DPLA ready – Crosswalks directly to DPLA Metadata Application Profile v4.
  • Implements Rightsstatements.org and Creative Commons – Two frameworks that in combination make it easy for a depositor to clearly declare a work’s rights status and assign a license to and make crystal clear how others can use the work.
  • Leverage linked open data – Offers ability to apply authorized forms via external vocabularies, such as the GeoNames database for locations, and to store the values as URIs.

    For future development:
  • Ability to customize field labels for public display
  • Improved approach to capture resource type and genre
  • More support for managing local and external vocabularies

Access Controls

Hyku offers many ways to control access to repository content.

  • Three visibility levels are possible:
    • Open Access – any public user can discover and download the work.
    • Institution – any user authenticated as a member of the repository institution can discover and download the work.
    • Private – Available only to the depositor and those users or groups with whom the depositor has shared the work.
  • Flexible assignment – Set visibility at four levels: Administrative Set, Collection, Work, or File.
  • Special access settings and tools
    • Embargo – Delay the release of a work so it is discoverable and accessible at a future date.
    • Lease support – Provide access to a work for a limited time period.
    • Single-use links – Provide file access to a user through a direct link that expires after one use or 24 hours. 

Discovery and Use

  • Faceted search and browse – Powered by Blacklight, an intuitive interface makes it easy to search and find content quickly.
  • Google Scholar metadata tags – Facilitates indexing and discovery of repository works in a Google Scholar search.
  • Supports IIIF – International Image Interoperability Framework for publishing and sharing content, and provides the IIIF-compliant Universal Viewer for presenting content to repository users.
  • Manage citations – Exportable to EndNote.

    For future development:
  • Export citations to Mendeley, Zotero – Now in testing
  • Full-text indexing and search – Now in testing
  • Display work’s microdata with search results
  • Enable display of social media buttons with works in search results
  • Further optimize for indexing and discovery of works in Google Scholar
  • Audit of Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0) compatibility 

User Features

  • Multilingual interface – Application UI is available in English, Chinese, Spanish.
  • Dashboard – Stocked with a variety of tools and settings for adding, managing, and sharing content.
  • Activity notifications – Receive updates on repository activity through the dashboard.
  • User profile – Add a headshot, enter your ORCID and social media accounts, highlight your work. 

    For future development:
  • More language support
  • Integrated access to profile information maintained in institution directory is potential future enhancement.
  • Email notifications of repository activity
  • Periodic summary reports of content usage delivered by email

Configuration Panels

Lots of options to easily make the repository yours.

  • Basic customizations to appearance – Set the banner image, font color, etc.
  • Enter and format informational text – For display on the Home page, About page, and Help page as well as the site’s Terms of Use and Deposit Agreement.
  • One-click toggles – Turn on/off select features, including proxy deposit, deposit agreement requirement, transfer of work ownership, batch upload.

    For future development:
  • Configure Contact form and page details
  • Enable FFMPEG transcoding of audio and video files
  • Configure deposit workflow via UI-based workflow builder

Administrative Dashboard

The Administrator’s work is made easier by a dashboard for configuring, monitoring, and managing content overall.

  • Repository activity at-a-glance – Graphs and reporting widgets provide a real-time summary of key statistics.
  • System monitoring – When troubleshooting, quickly see if a critical component (Fedora, Solr, Redis, Database) is not “OK”.
  • Reports – More detailed statistics on repository contents and usage.

    For in planning:
  • Usage analytics

User, Group, & Role Management

Hyku has three users roles currently implemented - Repository Administrator, Manager, and Depositor - and interface tools to assign them to users.

  • Administrator has full management control of repository’s configuration, users, and all content. Can assign a role to an individual user and manage their role(s) in administrative set workflows. Can create a group of users, and manage and assign roles to the group.
  • Manager is assigned by Repository Administrator at the Administrative Set level. As the name suggests, has full management control of the set, including the ability to edit the set metadata, participants, and release and visibility settings. Managers can also review works submitted for approval, edit work metadata, add to or remove files from a work, and add new works to the set.
  • Depositor can add works to the repository’s default administrative set and collection or to other sets as assigned by the Administrator or a Manager

    For future development:
  • Integration with enterprise authentication systems (Shibboleth, OAuth, CAS, LDAP, etc.)
  • Import users and groups from external system
  • Admin Set Viewer role, who can see, but not edit or download, all works in an Administrative Set, regardless of visibility settings.

File Management

  • File Manager – An easy-to-use interface for labeling files, ordering a sequence of files, and selecting a file to represent the work on public facing pages.
  • Derivatives – Processed automatically for online access.
  • File version support – If a new version of a file is added to a work, the existing, now superseded file version is retained and maintained in the repository.

Persistence & Preservation Support

  • Unique identification – On deposit, a unique identifier (Fedora UUID) is generated and assigned to each object.
  • File characterization – File are processed on upload to generate key characterization information and other technical metadata necessary for ongoing file management and preservation.
  • File audit – The checksum of a stored file can be verified to ensure the file’s integrity has been maintained. 

    For future development:
  • Integration with a DOI service for durable linking
  • Export BagIt packages for deposit in preservation system
  • Integration with preservation services, such as DuraCloud and LOCKSS

Interoperable Services

  • ResourceSync – Implementation of this emerging standard protocol for facilitating the synchronization of online content, useful search engine optimization and for feeding content to aggregators like DPLA.
  • IIIF – Implementations of the Image API and Presentation API make repository content interoperable with other IIIF-compliant systems and applications.
  • RESTful HTTP API Basic, general purpose interface for enabling programmatic interoperability.

    Now in planning: 
  • Google Analytics
  • OAI-PMH

    For future development:
  • Zotero by way of Arkivo
  • ORCID
  • SWORD v2
  • SHARE