Introduction of Bibliography Object

1 Requirements

Development of a new ILIAS object „Interface to bibliographical reference management systems“ - in short „bibliographic list object“

1.1 Intent

Development of an ILIAS object similar to the ILIAS file object in order to display and download bibliographical lists within an ILIAS course.

1.2 Definition of bibliographic lists and the planned use in our context

Our bibliographic lists are export files from well known bibliographical reference management systems like endnote or citavi, which should be imported to ilias.
The lists have to be uploaded by the ilias course owner. Displaying, up- and downloading bibliographic lists in RIS- and in BibTeX-Format must be possible. Editing of the lists will take place on the private reference management systems of the course teachers. Often these systems like citavi or endnote are supported by libraries.

Bibliographic list objects should be created, uploaded, replaced and deleted in a way similar to ilias file objects. In the creation mask of the bibliographic list object the following input fields have to be available: title, description, file format/file type, file upload. Rights management for the list object should be the same as for the ilias file object.

Bibliographic list objects are, therefore mostly components in an ilias course. List objects are no distinct types of an ilias course object. They are similar to the ilias file object.

1.3 Display of the bibliographic lists in ILIAS

The display is designed to be easy. There will be a short advertisement in the form of lists and a full display of the complete records.

1.3.1 List display

1.3.2 Display of the full record

The full record also includes all other fields of the respective format. It is, at this moment, not yet decided whether the field order of the full display of a fixed sequence is to be defined, or whether they are displayed "as given". The full display is to be opened by clicking on a text ad in the list. The full record should preferably also open in a separate window. In the source window, the list form with the location of the place of the call will remain.

Web references should be clickable in the list display.

ilias-ag-bw

2 Status

3 Additional Information

4 Discussion

Matthias Kunkel, 01.04.2010: There have already been plans for a similar tool at Uni Karlsruhe two years ago. Maybe a co-funding and specification is possible.

Alex Killing, 1.4.2010: As Matthias wrote, this would need some additional specification. But in general it could be implemented as a repository plugin.

Old discussion "Literaturverwaltungstool": http://www.ilias.de/iosbb/viewtopic.php?t=4783

JF 9 Jan 2012: We still appreciate this idea. We als think that the feature could become a core component, a new repository object type. Please put this on the Jour Fixe agenda again if funding and final concept is settled and a possible maintainer is found.

JF 2 Apr 2012: We will discuss this feature in one of the upcoming JF in more detail and currently postpone the decision whether this should be core or plugin.

MST 13 Okt 2012: Please decide if we should develop this as a repository object or a plugin. The specification is described in literaturliste.pdf (at the top of this page). ILIAS will be a distributor and viewer for bibliographic data. We think it should be a core component because distributing and sharing of bibliographic data are very important at universities

JF 15 Oct 2012: We think this feature should be implemented as a new repository object type, since bibliograpic lists are an important and typical learning resource in higher education institutions.

Alex 22 Feb 2013: Everything is settled, so Matthias and I schedule this for 4.4.

JF 25 Nov 2013: The "Magnifier" Icon should not silently become a new standard in ILIAS. The title should be linked with the detailed view.
 
The icon used for bibliography objects is using the same symbol as used for learning modules. We would like to avoid this, but currently have no good idea for an alternative. If anybody has one, please let us know. We may replace this icons with another even in ILIAS 4.5.

MST 09 Dec 2013: I removed the "Magnifier Icon" - SVN Revision 46660

5 Implementation

The module has been implemented for 4.4/trunk.
 
Per object one Bibliography-File can be uploaded. In this moment RIS (.ris) and BibTex (.bib) files are supported.
ILIAS creates an overview page for the chosen file. On this overview page, all the literaric objects are displayed in a preview-form.
This preview can be configured directly in the database. This is further explained below (Patterns).
On the overview page, the original file can be downloaded.
 
The following screenshots were made using the BibTex Example anatomie.bib.

When clicking on one of those Entries, ILIAS displays the detail-view. Here, all attributes of the chosen literaric object are displayed tabularly.

5.1 Overview structure patterns

For knowing what to display in the overview, and how to display it, ILIAS needs patterns that are configured directly in the db-table il_bibl_overview_model. By default, there is already one default pattern per each RIS and BibTex in the databse.
Those patterns are especially useful for the RIS format, where there can be differences between different literaric types (boke, journal, ...), even the same attribute keys are sometimes used differently.
 
An example example for RIS-entries of the type book:
<strong>[|ris_book_a1|][; |ris_book_a2|]:</strong> [|ris_book_t1|.]<Emph>[|ris_book_pb|][, |ris_book_y1|][, |ris_book_u1|].</Emph>
 
What is written outside of the brackets is directly taken over in the output text. What is inside the brackets, is only taken over, if such an attribute exists for the given entry. Inside of these brackets are 3 parts (seperated by |). If an attribute is given, it just takes the first part, then adds the second part and finally adds the third part to a string. If for example the attribute a2 from the type book is given (ris_book_a2), then the output text for that bracket would be "; The Autor".
 
Here an example-output-string for a book (RIS) with the attributes a1 = William Shakespeare, pb = Mittelalter Verlag, y1 = 1610 using the pattern from above:
<strong>William Shakespeare:</strong><Emph>Mittelalter Verlag, 1610</Emph>
 
However, an administration of those patterns was not a part of the project scope for the ILIAS 4.4 Release. If desired, a GUI for the ILIAS-Administration can be developed. For such a request, please get in contact with studer + raimann ag (info@studer-raimann.ch).
 
There is a more detailed description in german in the attached PDF file.