Data Privacy

Owned by Kristi Park
Last updated: Sept 08, 2022
3 min read

Texas Digital Library and the DSpace application collect certain data from authenticated and unauthenticated users of each repository site for the purposes of service provision and service improvement.

Data Collection

Data Collected about Authenticated Users

Users of DSpace must authenticate to submit or manage items in the repository, or in some cases to view restricted data in the repository. Any individual user must be expressly granted permissions to take such actions.

Shibboleth login

In most cases, Texas Digital Library uses the Shibboleth federated identity application to connect each hosted institutional repository to the institutional identity provider for the member institution. When a user logs in via Shibboleth, they log in to their home institution’s identity system, and that system passes along a limited set of attributes to the DSpace platform to authenticate the user. Those attributes typically include:

  • Name (Only visible to Administrative users. Used to identify individuals to add to system groups)

  • Email Address (Only visible to Administrative users.)

  • Institutional Affiliation (Used for authentication only and not visible in the user interface.)

  • A unique alphanumerical identifier (used for authentication only and not visible in the user interface.)

In some cases, TDL may also request an “affiliation” attribute, which communicates the user’s relationship to their home institution (e.g. faculty, student, or staff) and may be used to limit access to certain resources in the repository.

When a user logs in via Shibboleth, a user account is created in DSpace that contains the users name and email address. That information is contained in the user’s profile and is editable by the user. Users may (optionally) add user information such as telephone number to their profile.

DSpace login

In some cases, users may register and use accounts through the native DSpace authentication functionality. To register an account, DSpace requires the following information

  • First Name (Only visible to Administrative users. Used to identify individuals to add to system groups)

  • Last Name (Only visible to Administrative users. Used to identify individuals to add to system groups)

  • Telephone (Optional, only visible to Administrators. Not used by system)

  • E-Mail (Only visible to Administrative users. Used as username to login)

  • Preferred Language (optional)

  • Date of last activity (automatically set)

Information collected from all users

Information collected from users of DSpace repositories (whether logged in or not) include the following:

We collect IP addresses of those who browse and use the repository site and collect data about files that are downloaded, which pages are viewed, and what searches are made.

How We Use Data

Browsing and downloading information from the repository site does not typically require login, unless content is restricted.

Users need to have user accounts if they are granted access to specific restricted materials Accounts (referred to as ePersons by DSpace).

We may use your IP address and files you access to help diagnose problems with our server and to administer our web site. We also use this information to generate aggregate statistical reports. We do not disclose site usage by individual users.

Data Security

See

Google Analytics

By default TDL configures DSpace to record Google Analytics data within DSpace and gives institutional administrators the ability to track user interface data recorded by Google Analytics. An institution via its DSpace Administrator may request to remove Google Analytics tracking from their DSpace website.

Google Analytics is a website analysis service. Website analysis refers to the collection, recording and analysis of data regarding the behavior of visitors to the website. A website analysis service records e.g. data showing from which website a user has come to a website, which subpages of the website were accessed or how often and how long a subpage was viewed. Website analysis is used mainly for the optimization of a website and for a cost-benefit analysis of Internet advertising. TDL uses this interaction behavior to assess how users are using the site and not for advertising purposes.

More information about Google’s privacy policies can be accessed at https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en-US and https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6004245#zippy=%2Cour-privacy-policy%2Cgoogle-analytics-cookies-and-identifiers .