SWAPping SWORDs

The recent SUETr survey has turned up some great results, many thanks to all those who took the time to fill it in.

Whilst working through the responses, I noticed a request for more information for SWORD. Jullie Allinson, SWORD project manager, has some useful presentations on her University of York homepage about both SWORD and SWAP. These are very comprehensive and a great way to learn more about the two initiatives. The SWAP presentation is especially useful as it comes with a built-in practical exercise - you'll need a copy of the SWAP application profile documentation and a 'worked example' (1) (2) to go with these.

Ariadne ran an introduction to SWORD back in January that's well worth a read, particularly if you're new to the subject. The Digirep wiki also has a section on SWORD that includes a couple of demonstration clients and (eventually more than one) case studies.

DSpace training materials (with wider applicability)

Pete Cliff, a research officer at UKOLN who is also working on SUETr, has drawn my attention to the availability of a number of DSpace training materials on the DSpace website

There's a useful selection of PDF-based tutorials, including:

• DSpace How To Guide: Tips and Tricks for Managing Common Dspace Chores
• Basic DSpace Tutorial
• Advanced DSpace Tutorial - plugins, configurable submission, core API

There's also a workbook on creating an institutional repository, a worksheet on creating a service model definition, and a concise project planning worksheet. These aren't always specific to DSpace - for example, the project planning and service model definition worksheets are fairly generic and applicable in a number of other software scenarios.

Case studies, add-ons and other useful training-type materials are available from a secondary training materials page

If you use any of these materials, please do let us know how you get on!