Creating Communities and Collections

Documentation in this section is for a legacy version of TDL-hosted DSpace repositories. As of December 2023, all TDL-hosted repositories are in DSpace version 7.6.

Creating a Community or Sub-community

  • Login to Repository
  • Decide where you want your proposed community or sub-community to be located in the repository hierarchy
    • Communities and sub-communities are useful for organizing content within your repository, but they do not actually hold items - collections hold items. Think through the architecture for your content before creating any communities, sub-communities, or collections as it can be difficult to change things after you’ve started adding content.
    • See Relationships in DSpace for more information about the DSpace repository hierarchy
  • Navigate to the appropriate location in the hierarchy
  • If you are adding a top-level community, you should only see one option for Create Community

  • Here you will be able to add the following information about your community

    • Name of community (required)
    • Short description of community (optional)
    • Introductory text to your community (optional)
    • Copyright text (optional)
    • News about your community (optional)
    • You can also upload a logo or image by browsing to the file on your local computer
  • Once you have added your content, click Create at the bottom of the page

  • Your screen should switch to the Edit Metadata tab within the edit community menu
  • Switch to the Assign Roles tab to designate administrators for your community

  • Type the last name of the person you wish to add in the Search members to add box
    • That person should have logged into the repository at least once in order for the system to recognize them.
  • Click the E-People button or press enter to search for that person’s name

  • Click Add next to the person’s name you wish to add

  • Then click Save

  • When you are finished assigning administrators for the community, click on Return

  • If you are adding a sub-community, go to the higher level community (where you want your sub-community to be listed) and then click on Create Sub-community. After doing that, the instructions are the same as adding a new community.

Creating a Collection

  • Login to Repository
  • Navigate to the community or sub-community where you want to add your collection
  • Click Create Collection under CONTEXT in the right-hand navigation bar

  • Here you will be able to add the following information about your collection:
    • Name of collection (required)
    • Short description of collection (optional)
    • Introductory text to your collection (optional)
    • Copyright text (optional)
    • News about your collection (optional)
    • License (optional) – if there is a specific license that applies to the entire collection (for instance CC-BY) you can add that information here. There is also space to add license information when uploading an individual item.
    • Provenance (optional) – provenance is the history of ownership of materials prior to acquisition by the current institution. Typically used to refer to art collections or historical materials.
    • You can also upload a logo or image by browsing to the file on your local computer
  • Once you have added your content, click Create at the bottom of the page

  • Your screen should switch to the Assign Roles tab within the edit collection menu
  • To add an Administrator for the collection, click Create to the right of the Administrators option

  • Type the last name of the person you wish to add in the Search members to add box
    • That person should have logged into the repository at least once in order for the system to recognize them.
  • Click the E-People button to search for that person’s name

  • Click Add next to the person’s name you wish to add

  • Then click Save

  • To add reviewers, click Create for the workflow step you want to choose for your collection (see Workflows for more information about workflow steps).

  • For a 1-step workflow, select the Accept/Reject/Edit Metadata Step and follow the steps above for adding someone
  • For a 2-step workflow, follow the steps for adding people for the Accept/Reject Step and again for the Edit Metadata Step
  • To add submitters, click Create to the right of the Submitters option
    • Follow the steps above for adding someone

  • When you are finished assigning roles for the collection, click on Return