This is a living resource that captures the collected research, experience and recommendations of Arca participants, coordinators and governance bodies as we implement Arca repositories. It will serve as a resource for other sites joining the Arca Collaborative Digital Repository.
Arca is a collaborative digital repository, initiated to support the the goal of supporting access to a wealth of digital assets. Foundational to the creation of the BC Digital Library, Arca is a collaborative initiative that puts the development and implementation of a digital repository within reach for every institution, at a reasonable cost, and in a supported environment.
Arca is built on Islandora, a Canadian-developed open-source platform currently in use at over 100 public and private institutions worldwide. This robust, standards-based, provincially shared platform provides institutions with open-access repositories for research, theses, and any other digital assets they wish to make available to the wider community.
Arca is made possible by a partnership between the British Columbia Electronic Library Network (BC ELN) and its partner libraries, and Charlottetown, PEI-based software firm discoverygarden, initiated with seed funding from the Ministry of Advanced Education.
Support questions should be directed to the Arca Admin Centre. For other questions, please contact:
Sunni Nishimura
Manager (Communications, Governance, Support)
Brandon Weigel
Coordinator (Implementation and Technical Support)
General information about Arca can be found on the BC ELN Arca Project webpages.
Arca (BC Collaborative Repository - search across all Arca sites): http://www.arcabc.ca
Links to Individual Institution Sites
Benefits and responsibilities for BC ELN Arca participants can be found on the BC ELN website.
Benefits and responsibilities for non-BC ELN Arca participants can be found on the BC ELN website.
There are 2 main steps to prepare to join Arca: Preparing and Planning for your institutional repository; and Completing the Arca Participant Needs Assessment Survey.
The following best practices are drawn from the RSP Checklist: http://www.rsp.ac.uk/start/before-you-start/planning-checklist/
A. Define purpose, scope and goals of your repository
B. Understand your institutional context
C. Identify your local support team
D. Resourcing
E. Reporting Back
Download and fill out the Arca Participant Needs Assessment, and return to the Arca Admin Centre.
Following are the basic steps you need to set up your Arca repository, in roughly logical order.
Contact the Arca Admin Centre to initiate the process of joining Arca.
Provide the following details:
The Arca Admin Centre will provide details about the Arca Service Support Fee which each participant pays on a yearly basis, and any applicable storage costs.
The Arca Admin Centre will contact the vendor to set-up your Islandora repository and provide you with your URL and user access.
Establish Local Staffing
Each Arca institution will need to establish local staffing; responsibilities may include the following set-up and on-going activities.
Local staff responsibilities during the set-up phase include:
On-going local staff responsibilities will include:
Develop Local Policies
Local vs. Arca
Wherever possible, repository policies will be established at the local institution level, not the Arca/consortial level. Some provincial considerations to keep in mind as you develop your local policies and procedures:
Arca Submission Agreement Template
The Arca Advisory Committee has created a Submission Agreement Template which may be used by Arca sites. Individuals who wish to submit content to a repository must agree to some form of submission agreement, whether it is the institution's local agreement or the Arca agreement.
Developing Local Policies
The OpenDOAR Policy Tool is a simple tool designed to help repository administrators to formulate and/or present their repository's policies. It provides a series of checkboxes and pick lists for all the key policy options.
Each institution should establish and post their own local policies in the following areas:
Some sample repository policies:
More information about repository policies:
Once the Arca Admin Centre has provided you with access to your Islandora repository, contact the Arca Admin Centre to set up training for your institution’s repository staff.
The following documents will be useful for developing your local workflows (please note these are living documents and subject to change):
Once your institution is familiar with the Arca defaults for workflows and metadata, you can begin to determine any customisations needed to meet your institution’s needs. The Arca Admin Centre can help you determine which customisations are feasible and/or fall within the scope of the BC ELN contract.
6. Local Branding & Visibility
Each participating institution receives a Drupal front-end for their repository, themed with the default Arca theme. Each institution can then choose to customise within that Arca theme things like background and sidebar colours, the logo etc. using the Appearance tab in their own Drupal front-end.
Most early adopters have chosen to develop a name for their repository, a logo and a tagline. Explore what other Arca sites have done here: List of Participating Sites
Arca minimum branding requirements - The default Arca footer content must be displayed on each participating site to link it back to the main Arca site.
If further customisation is desired, sites with Drupal experts are welcome to make changes themselves, or to contract with discoverygarden individually. Customisations outside the scope of the Arca theme may impact future updates and may fall outside the scope of the BC ELN contract with discoverygarden - please consult with the Arca Admin Centre.
All Arca sites are optimised for search engines visibility. The Arca Admin Centre will ensure that Arca repositories are registered with OAI harvesters.
7. Staff Training and Advocacy
The Arca Admin Centre has made basic training materials available on the Arca Support site.
Some Arca advocacy tools have been developed for customisation and use by participating institutions:
The Arca Admin Centre works closely with discoverygarden to provide participating sites with troubleshooting and support.
To report an issue, ask a question or make a suggestion about Arca, please contact the Arca Admin Centre. We will contact discoverygarden on your behalf.
You are encouraged to consult Islandora 7.x-1.5 community-built documentation, bearing in mind that the Arca installation may have some features not reflected in the community documentation.
You are also encouraged to participate in the thriving Islandora user community, where questions can often be answered by Islandora experts very quickly.
JISC Digital Repositories Infokit http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/infokits/digital-repositories/
Repositories Support Project http://www.rsp.ac.uk/start/