7505 Assignment 4 Kastellec
My initial impression was that the interface could be better. It wasn't immediately clear to me where to login, and then where to go to add content. I found that it only took me a short while to become familiar with the UI, though. I was able to create a community and a collection, and then add a submission. Unfortunately, the image I uploaded doesn't work in my Firefox browser. It does work in IE 8, though. I'm pretty sure the problem lies with the JPEG itself (it's a panoramic image stiched together out of multiple JPEGs with a Microsoft tool), not any issue with DSpace. Also, the provided handle.net URL didn't work--I'm not sure if that was intended on Larry's part or a genuine error.
When I came back later to add another item to my collection, then titled "Photos", I noticed that others had apparently created collections with the same identifier and there was no way to tell them apart in the drop down selector. Rather than guess which was correct, I navigated to the admin page for my collection and changed the title (to "MK Photos"). Unfortunately, I ran into an internal server error when trying to create this new submission. With the deadline approaching, and my existing submission working in at least one common browser, I decided to leave well enough alone.
Though I was initially confused about the parameters for the metadata field I needed to create, and I faced the minor hurdle of recreating my additions after they were accidentally deleted by another student, I didn't have any real trouble with DSpace. I found it to be excellent at its narrow mission of managing an online repository. I remain curious, though, whether it has been adapted for any originally unforseen purposes by third parties--is there someone out there using this for business records, or a family history, or something?
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