An overview of the Hydra digital repository framework and the community that builds and maintains it. Presented at Open Repositories 2013 in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada.

1. GET AHEAD ON YOUR REPOSITORY
Mark Bussey
Data Curation Experts
Bess Sadler
Stanford University Libraries

2. What Is Hydra?
• A robust repository fronted by feature-rich,
tailored applications and workflows (“heads”)
➭ One body, many heads
• Collaboratively built “solution bundles” that
can be adapted and modified to suit local
needs.
• A community of developers and adopters
extending and enhancing the core
➭ If you want to go fast, go alone. If you
want to go far, go together.

3. Fundamental Assumption #1
No single system can provide the full range
of repository-based solutions for a given
institution‟s needs,
…yet sustainable solutions require a
common repository infrastructure.

4. For Instance…
- Generally a
single PDF
- Simple,
prescribed
workflow
- Streamlined UI
for depositors,
reviewers &
readers
Digitization
Workflow
System
General Purpose
Institutional
Repository
Simple Complex
- Potentially
hundreds of files
type per object
- Complex,
branching workflow
- Sophisticated
operator (back
office) interfaces
- Heterogeneous
file types
- Simple to
complex objects
- One- or two-step
workflow
- General purpose
user interfaces
ETD
Deposit
System

5. Hydra Heads: Emerging Solution Bundles
Institutional Repositories
University of Hull
University of Virginia
Penn State University
Images
Northwestern University
(Digital Image Library)

6. Hydra Heads: Emerging Solution Bundles
Archives & Special Collections
Stanford University
University of Virginia
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
Duke University Libraries
Media
Indiana University
Northwestern University
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
WGBH

7. Hydra Heads: Emerging Solution Bundles
Workflow Management
(Digitization, Preservation)
Stanford University
University of Illinois – Urbana-Champagne
Northwestern University
Exhibits
Notre Dame

8. Hydra Heads: Emerging Solution Bundles
ETDs
Stanford University
University of Virginia
University of Hull
Notre Dame
(Small) Data
everyone…

9. Fundamental Assumption #2
No single institution can resource the
development of a full range of solutions on
its own,
…yet each needs the flexibility to tailor
solutions to local demands and workflows.

10. Hydra Philosophy -- Community
• An open architecture, with many
contributors to a common core
• Collaboratively built “solution bundles” that
can be adapted and modified to suit local
needs
• A community of developers and adopters
extending and enhancing the core
• “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you
want to go far, go together.”
One body, many heads

11. Community
• Conceived & executed as a collaborative, open
source effort from the start
• Initially a joint development project between
Stanford, Univ of Virginia, and Univ of Hull
• Close collaboration with DuraSpace / Partnership
with MediaShelf / Data Curation Experts
• Complementary strengths and expertise

12. Hydra Partners
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16
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20
OR09 OR10 OR11 OR12 OR13
OR = Open Repositories Conference

13. UC San Diego, 2012

14. Community Rhythms
• Daily
• IRC: chat.freenode.net #projecthydra
• Email list: hydra-tech@googlegroups.com
• Weekly developer calls: Mondays 8:30 AM
California time
• Monthly partner calls: 2nd Friday of each month
• Quarterly Hydra Partner meetings

15. Quarterly Hydra Partner Meetings
• Spring
• Regional Meetings
• LibDevConX at Stanford
• Summer
• Project related meetings
• Fall
• Learn/Share/Connect (Worldwide)
• Winter
• Developer Congress & Strategic Planning

16. Currently
- DuraSpace
- Hull
- MediaShelf
- Stanford
- Virginia
Hydra Steering Group
- small coordinating body
- collaborative roadmapping
(tech & community)
- resource coordination
- governance of the "tech core"
and Hydra Framework
- community mtce. & growth
Hydra Partners
- shape and direct work
- commission "Heads"
- functional requirements
& specs
- UI design & spec
- Documentation
- Training
- Data & content models
- "User groups"Founders
- Duraspace
- Hull
- Stanford
- UVa
Hydra Developers
- define tech architecture
- code devleopment
- integration & release
Committers
Contributors
Tech. Users
Community
Model

17. Managing the Community
• Founding partners have an MoU governing
how the community is managed
• Subsequent partners have signed up to this MoU
through a partner agreement addendum
• Requirements of Partners
• Use the software
• Contribute to the project
• Collaborate with other partners
• Commit to collectively advancing the project and
the community
• Funding / payment is NOT required

18. Hydra Partners…
…are individuals, institutions, corporations or
other groups that have committed to contributing
to the Hydra community; they not only use the
Hydra technical framework, but also add to it in
at least one of many ways:
code, analysis, design, support, funding, or other
resources.
Hydra Partners collectively advance the project
and the community for the benefit of all
participants.
https://wiki.duraspace.org/display/hydra/Hydra+Community+Framework

19. Code Licensing
• All Hydra code is available under Apache
License, Version 2.0
• All code commitments are being managed
through Contributor License Agreements
• Individual – so each developer is clear about
what they are contributing
• Corporate – so each institution is clear about
what it is contributing
• Code contributors maintain ownership of
their IP
• And grant a non-exclusive license to the project
and its users

20. Sustainability
No animals were harmed
in the making of this film.

21. Job Postings

22. If You Want To Go Fast…
…go alone.
…use Hydra?
• Notre Dame deployed a video cataloging
head in 6 weeks, from scratch
• Rock „n Roll Hall of Fame -
• Ohloh.net stats (as of July 2013)
• ~40 code contributors
• Top 10% of open source teams
• ~8 person years of development

23. Hypatia Development – 8 week sprint
80/20 – 8 Weeks of Development
https://github.com/projecthydra/hypatia/graphs/impact

24. Hydra-based Applications at Stanford
ETD‟s – Electronic Theses
& Dissertations
SALT – Self-Archiving
Legacy Toolkit
EEMs – Everyday
Electronic Materials
Argo – Repository Reporting
and Management
Hypatia – Archives &
Special Collections

25. Hydra Philosophy -- Technical
• Tailored applications and workflows for
different content types, contexts and
user interactions
• A common repository infrastructure
• Flexible, atomistic data models
• Modular, “Lego brick” services
• Library of user interaction widgets
• Easily skinned UI
One body, many heads

26. Shared, Primitive Functions
• Deposit
• Manage
– Edit Objects
– Set Access
• Search
• Browse
• Deliver
Plus
 Authentication
 Authorization
 Workflow

27. Content Framework
• Key to enabling re-use of Hydra repository
solutions is a common baseline to how
objects are structured
• Objects must include rights metadata
• Objects must include a statement of what
content models the objects adhere to
• That‟s it!
• The Hydra community has developed some
basic building block content models (the
Lego brick approach)
• Combine and/or extend these to meet your
needs

28. Technical Framework - Components
• Fedora provides a durable repository layer to
support object management and persistence
• Solr, provides fast access to indexed
information
• Blacklight, a Ruby on Rails plugin that sits
atop solr and provides faceted search &
tailored views on objects
• Hydra Head, a Ruby on Rails plugin that
provides create, update and delete actions
against Fedora objects

29. Blacklight for Repositories
• Repository-agnostic, feature-rich, content-
aware, turnkey access interface for repositories
• Aggregate content from multiple repositories,
with links back to source systems
• Vibrant, multi-institutional, open source
community on its own
• Can be used independently, or as the first
component of, Hydra

30. CRUD in Repositories
Repository/
Persistent Storage
Create/Submit/Edit
(CUD)
Search/View
(R)

31. CRUD in Repositories
Repository/
Persistent Storage
Create/Submit/Edit
(CUD)
Search/View
(R)

32. Major Hydra Components
Fedora Solr
Solrizer
Blacklight
(R)
hydra-head
Rails Plugin
(CUD)
Blacklight
(Read Only)

33. A Note on Ruby on Rails
• Rapid application development for web
applications: “Convention over configuration”
– 10x productivity
• Supportable: MVC (Model-View-Controller) and
Rails framework make code well-
structured, predictable
• Testable: Rspec and Cucumber give
powerful, automatable, testing tools
• Learnable: Stanford went from 1 to 8 Ruby savvy
developers in one year (no new hires)
– 1 week learning curve to basic proficiency

34. Philosophies
• Building a framework, not an application
(variation is part of the plan)
• Opinionated software
• Invest time & resources into collaborative
community (face time!)
• Trainings & workshops
• Openness, transparency (code, designs,
discussions)
• Commit to contributing back to core
• Design for re-use

35. Best Practices in Development
• Agile, user-centric development process
• Test driven development & continuous integration
• Take a light touch when dealing with big topics:
“working software wins”
• Distributed version control, github & public
software repositories
• Rotating release managers for components
• Weekly “stand up” meeting w/ JIRA
• Daily chats in IRC
• Documentation

36. So What is Hydra?
• Framework for generating Fedora front-end
applications w/ full CRUD functionality
• That follows design pattern with common
componentry and platforms
– Fedora, Ruby on Rails, Solr, Blacklight
• That supports distinct UI‟s, content types,
workflows, and policies

37. So What is Hydra?
• And a growing community of institutions and
developers committed to framework and
collaboration
– Not grant-based
– Distributed
– Robust
– Open

38. Connect
• http://www.projecthydra.org
• Weekly developer calls:
• Mondays 8:30 AM California time
• Email list: hydra-tech@googlegroups.com
• IRC: chat.freenode.net #projecthydra
• Quarterly Hydra Partner meetings

39. Upcoming Hydra Camps
• Next Up: 5-9 August ‟13, U. Virginia
• robin.ruggaber@virginia.edu
• Late September / early October somewhere
in the midwest
• mark@curationexperts.com

40. http://projecthydra.org