BEN Architecture

Isovera Consulting

Feb. 2006

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BEN Architecture Diagram

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BEN Architecture

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BEN Components, Part 1

• BEN Portal– Public Website

• User registration and profile management• Browse by Resource Type and by Discipline• Basic Search and Advanced Search

– Harvester/Thresher– Project Site – contains documentation, reaper downloads, and related

files.– Collaborators Online Workplace – an online workspace for facilitating

communication among collaborators, BEN project manager and technical staff.

– Administrative tools for managing harvesting, user profiles, and reviewing search statistics.

• General Biology Collection– Publicly available cataloging tools– Validation tools for approved BEN administrators

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BEN Components, Part 2

• Collaborator Digital Libraries– Web applications for distributing digital learning objects in the biological

sciences.– Usually include user registration, cataloging, browsing and search tools.– Many are written in PHP/MySQL.– Connect to the BEN Portal via the Harvester/Reaper.

• Include the following libraries:– EcoEd.net (Ecological Society of America)– MicrobeLibrary.org (American Society of Microbiology)– APSArchives.org (American Physiological Society)– BioMoleculesAlive.org (American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology)– ActionBiosci.org (American Institute of Biological Sciences)– AccessExcellence.org (National Health Museum)– Science’s STKE (American Association for the Advancement of Science)

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BEN Portal

• Software written in PHP– PHPLib takes care of database connectivity– Custom-written metadata class takes care of generating SQL

queries based on structure of learning resources.

• Resources are stored in a relational MySQL database.

• Database schema is written to reflect the LOM metadata structure.

• The search engine software is written in ColdFusion.

• Resources may not be entered into the Portal database directly by end users. They must be harvested into the database via the harvesting process.

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References

• NSDL Community Resources - http://nsdl.org/resources_for/library_builders/index.php

• BEN Project Site - http://www.biosciednet.org/project_site

• Database Schema - http://www.biosciednet.org/docs/database_spec.php

• Hardware Platform - http://www.biosciednet.org/docs/server_spec.php

• Technical Architecture - http://www.biosciednet.org/docs/BEN_architecture_diagram_1.1.pdf