TDR: Frequently Asked Questions about the Tufts Digital Repository

The Tufts Digital Repository is a repository system allows the DCA to preserve and manage digital content of enduring value created at Tufts University or used in teaching and research at Tufts University. This digital repository is based on Fedora, an Open Source digital repository architecture.

For more information about what Fedora is and how it works, visit the Fedora web site: http://fedora.info/.

Academic Technology at Tufts University develops the Tufts Digital Repository to meet requirements and specifications supplied by the DCA.

The DCA manages and maintains all digital repository content.

As the stewards of the digital repository, the DCA has created policy and guidelines that describe the accession, submission, and deposit processes. Please contact the DCA for more information.

It is useful to think of the digital library as *presenting* tools and digital content from the repository for access and use, and to think of the digital repository as *preserving* digital content for the long term. The Tufts Digital Library is just one application that can access and use the content in the Tufts digital repository.

The digital repository provides a means for all manner of applications (for example. courseware, teaching and learning, digital library, and content management applications) to utilize digital materials that it manages and maintains. The Tufts Digital Library is one such application. Another application currently in use is the Visual Understanding Environment (VUE) developed by Academic Technology. Using VUE's concept mapping interface, faculty and students can design customized semantic networks of digital resources drawing from digital repositories, local files and the Web. (For more information about VUE, please visit the VUE web site: http://vue.tccs.tufts.edu/).

Fedora is a general purpose repository service developed jointly by The University of Virginia Library and Cornell University. The Fedora project is devoted to the goal of providing open-source repository software that can serve as the foundation for many types of information management systems. For more information about what Fedora is and how it works, visit the Fedora page at: http://fedora.info/.

The short answer is: we use Fedora as our central digital repository service.

For more information and publications about how we have designed our digital repository and supporting applications, please visit our the Presentations and Publications section of our TDR program page.