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Client

Carol Minton Morris, National Science Digital Library, clt6@cornell.edu.

User Interface Design and Implementation for On Ramp, a National Science Digital Library (NSDL) Content Management System

The client has written a short overview of the OnRamp project, onramp.doc. The following brief description is taken from that paper. A longer paper and additional documentation is online at: http://nccs.comm.nsdl.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?NSDL_Content_and_Communications_System.

OnRamp

The National Science Digital Library (NSDL) is developing a content management system, which is known as On Ramp. This is a system for the distributed creation, editing, and dissemination of content from multiple users and groups in a variety of formats. It builds on the power and flexibility of the NSDL Data Repository, which is based on Cornell's Fedora software.

Phased development

The phase one development of On Ramp included the underlying architecture to support multiple content in a package, integration with the Fedora repository, integration with Groupster user and group management system, implementation of the RSS Feed dissemination mechanism, and a user interface for interaction with these subsystems.

Phase two will include the development of additional dissemination mechanisms to support different targets, and a facility for batch loading existing content from legacy systems. Phase one provides rudimentary support for searching archived packages. This facility will be enhanced in Phase Two.

Phase three will address issues that allow users to personalize their use of On Ramp, based on needs identified by users.

The project

Last year, a user study was conducted to determine how potential users viewed the fundamental system components and metaphors. Many users do not need the full flexibility of OnRamp, with its corresponding complexity. The goal of this project is to design and implement an easy to use interface that makes the core features of OnRamp accessible to less skilled users. The focus will be limited to a single static workflow supporting creation of packaged content, review approval, and release to targets.