About the software

Web site

http://www.eprints.org/software/

Licensing

EPrints is available under the GNU General Public License.  

Date of this document

February 2007

Versions tested

Eprints v2 is installed at USQ

Version 3 testing is in progress as of February 2007.

RUBRIC recommendation

As Eprints was outside of the scope of the RUBRIC project we did not recommend it to partners.

EPrints is a mature software package, with an established community. It offers a complete solution for managing a research repository for Open Access. EPrints can be put to other uses, but for other uses such as image repositories alternative software might be more appropriate.

We have heard concerns from the repository community that EPrints is not as flexible as, say a Fedora based solution, and that it is limited. However, the software is under active development and it is particularly useful as an Open Access document  repository.

Issues

No preservation features

System configuration could be placed under version control. This is not done via the web interface, so would require server console access.

One of the issues with EPrints is that it uses a flat metadata schema with simple name, value pairs of metadata. Read an opinion piece on this from the RUBRIC technical manager Peter Sefton.

Support options

The EPrints site offers support option from the owners of the software copyright the University of Southampton. The software also has an active Open Source community.

RQF support

RQF support in ePrints is unknown at this stage, although the Australian ePrints community is likely to work together to add the features required to support the RQF process.

USQ is investigating the usefulness of the RAE plug-in written for the UK community of users.

Who should consider this software?

Organizations wishing to join the Open Access movement.