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[EP-tech] Re: Associating eprints with other entities
On Thu, 30 Aug 2012 21:37:39 +0200, Jan Ploski <jpl at plosquare.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'd like our eprints to be searchable using attributes of other,
> associated entities. Specifically, we want to be able to search for
> eprints that were published in journals that match certain criteria
> (e.g. show all eprints published in OpenAccess journals). The attribute
> values of journals may of course change in time and such changes should
> be reflected immediately for all associated eprints.
>
> The quickest and most primitive approach would be to reproduce the
> desired journal attributes as metadata fields on eprints themselves and
> set the values whenever an eprint is saved. But that would call for some
> mechanism to ensure consistency when the journals themselves change
> (e.g. if a journal becomes OpenAccess, update all eprints that were
> published in it accordingly, to support search; perhaps through a db
> trigger).
>
> Furthermore, the direct approach of just storing the journal title in a
> text field (rather than some stable foreign key) seems bad for ensuring
> referential integrity (journal titles might change, too).
>
> So I was wondering whether it would be proper to model the journals as a
> new dataset and use itemref type fields to refer to them, or whether
> there are other recommended approaches. Do you know of any examples that
> might point me into the right direction?
Hi,
You can create a separate journals dataset and use itemref to tie the
journal into the eprint. There are some business-process issue with that
approach - how do users supply unlisted journal titles, who manages that
data etc.
Any other approach will require building an extension onto EPrints. You can
control how searches happen by creating a custom 'MetaField' e.g. by
returning a condition that queries a separate table.
No simple solutions I'm afraid, at least until we get further along with
adding support for CRIS-like features.
--
All the best,
Tim.