Our Project Vision  

As the academic and research communities continue to rise to the challenge of providing durable digital access to research and scholarship, the Institutional Repository (IR) and its affiliated services are an increasingly critical core service within institutions of higher education. The Hydramata project will envision and develop a solution supporting next generation IR needs with emphasis on flexibility and responsiveness to emerging needs. Of particular priority will be the ability to accept and manage highly complex objects, research data, and to support and implement other requirements emerging from the SHared Access to Research Ecosystem (SHARE) initiative. 

We Have a New Name!

We announced the new project name Hydramata at HydraConnect 2014 in San Diego.  The HydraConnect presentation can be found here:  Hydramata_Project_Lightning_Overview_Hydra_Connect_1_22_14_v2.pptx  Hydramata_Project_Lightning_Overview_Hydra_Connect_1_22_14_v2.pptx

Why the Name Change?

As we continue to expand our efforts, and stretch the limits of what is expected of an IR.  We decided to select a new name that would accommodate IR support but move beyond the assumptions of an IR that can artificially constrain what is possible within our vision.  

In selecting a new name we want to convey:

• Flexibility
• Modularity
• Extensibility
• Wide Format Support
• Support IR use cases
• Swappable Viewers, Workflows, Other Plugins

Enter Hydramata...

We are creating a set of separate hydra-based automata, “hydramata”, that can be combined to form a single Hydra Head.  Each hydramaton can be mixed and matched with other hydramata to provide wide format support tailored to fit your institutional or digital repository needs. 

Hydramata Combined

Each box above represents a hydramaton focused on a specific

• Content type (e.g. ETD’s, video, or images)
• Integration (e.g. Google Scholar, ORCiD, or Digital Exhibits)
• Service (e.g. discovery, preservation, publishing)

Discrete Hydramata

As shown by the additional white boxes above a single hydramaton may be composed of other smaller hydramata to perform more discrete tasks like deposit, review, publish, and display.

Our Goals Continued...

• Create Hydramata that can be mixed and matched to create a pluggable solution that supports a wide variety of formats, integrations, and services
• Enable blending of solutions, content, and services that until now have been within separate Hydra Heads
• Provide a pluggable framework that provides an improved way for the Hydra community to share their work
• Provide an easily installable system that can be configured to fit an institutions digital repository needs
• Grow a community process for prioritizing features and organizing work
• Move quickly to develop and deploy IR software that is in active use at multiple institutions
• Learn from the community, and communicate regularly on progress

Our Partners

So far six Hydra partners have banded together to create a vibrant community of adopters and creators of hydramata:  Project Team

Process and Partner Expectations

Organizations wishing to participate in the Hydramata project must be willing to contribute substantially in three ways: to contribute the time of staff who can participate in requirements development and prioritization, to contribute to code development with in-kind (programmer staff time) or direct (monetary) contributions, and to contribute Subject Matter Expertise (SME) in a variety of areas, including (but not limited to) metadata, legal policy, file characterization and management, business and work process definition, and subject or domain expertise. Most importantly, participants in the Hydramata project must be willing to work together to agree on a common set of needs and an overall schedule of development and releases. The project will be managed according to the Scrum agile methodology.

Scrum process and tools

Roles

 

Schedule, logistics and other practicalities

OR_14_Hydramata_Deep_Dive final_2.pptx

 

Product roadmap: see

• Completed Deliverables Phase 1
• Phase 2 release goals

Schedules of meetings, demos, standups, etc.

Nov 1 Draft sprint schedule, for review and comment

Information about each participating campus

Background reading and additional information

Hydramata Project Refresh March 2014:  Hydramata_Project_Refresh_March_2014.pptx  Hydramata_Project_Refresh_March_2014.pdf

HydraConnect 2014 Presentation:  Hydramata_Project_Lightning_Overview_Hydra_Connect_1_22_14_v2.pptx

HydraConnect Poster:  Curate Poster - Hydra Connect 2014.pdf

Project overview (Dec. 5, 2013 Kickoff Meeting):  Shared_IR_Project_Overview_12_5_13.pdf,  Shared_IR_Project_Overview_12_5_13.pptx

CNI Fall 2013 Presentation:  CNI Fall 2013_final.pptx

DLF Forum 2013 Presentation:  Shared_IR_DLF_2013-Breadth_vs_Depth.pdf

Notes from September 2013 Hydra Partner meeting: IR vertical and IR vertical - how to work together

DSpace on the Hydra stack from LibDevConX 2013

DSpace 2013 Vision Discussions

ePrints-based Functional / Gap Analysis for Hydra-based IR development
(a document produced by a Hydra Partner looking to match ePrints-based functionality with a Hydra-powered repo)