Esploro Overview

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Introduction

Esploro creates a unified system of records of research outputs, or assets. It widens the scope of data to all research assets through automated capture and deposits, either direct (by a researcher) or mediated (by an administrator). Metadata curation and enrichment make assets easily discoverable through discovery channels and institutional portals.

Administrators, such as librarians, can manage assets, apply metadata with ease, and collaborate with research offices and with scholars. Research office staff can track publications to ensure compliance with government and funder policies. Esploro can also be leveraged to measure research impact through relevant KPIs and benchmark analysis of individual researchers, of the organization, and across institutions.

This guide presents the tasks available to administrate Esploro and manage Esploro-related information as an administrator using the Esploro administrator user interface. This guide is intended for the people who will be administrating Esploro and managing Esploro-related information, including research deposits and research assets.

Esploro must already be installed in your institution. Esploro is based on the Higher-Ed platform. While Esploro and the Higher-Ed platform share the same database, in most cases Esploro and Higher-Ed platform records are separate and do not appear together. All administration tasks described in this document require a valid Esploro login. Your user account must have the roles presented in each section to perform the tasks in that section. Only the features relevant for your roles appear in the user interface.

Esploro and the Higher-Ed platform share the same database and a common administrator user interface. When accessing the administrator user interface as an Esploro manager, you see only those areas of the user interface that are relevant to Esploro. For general information about the user interface, see The Esploro User Interface.

The Researcher Profiles

Esploro's Researcher Profiles is a dedicated user interface for your institution's researchers to view and edit their profile information, submit new deposits, and view their deposits and assets, along with usage statistics.

The Research Portal

The Esploro Research Portal is the public user interface that showcases a university's research output and researchers. The Research Portal provides discovery features for access to researchers (their profile/organization) and the database of research output.

Redirect Previous Repository's Portal URLs to the Research Portal

After migrating from other repository systems to Esploro, you can set up a redirect of the previous repository portal asset pages and file links to their respective asset pages and file links in the Esploro Research Portal. To enable the redirect, please contact Ex Libris Support to configure the relevant redirect settings and make sure that you are able to redirect incoming calls made to the previous repository portal domain name to the new Esploro Research Portal domain.

All calls to the previous repository portal domain name should be redirected to the following URL:

https://<esploro_base_url>/esplorows/assetMapper?instCode=<esploro_inst_code>&path=<encoded_original_url>

where:
- esploro_base_url = the specific customer base URL for Esploro
- esploro_inst_code = the Esploro institution code of the customer
- path = the original URL request to the previous repository portal domain name, encoded in UTF-8
For example, for the Esploro university with the following details:
esploro_base_url = https://myuniversity.esploro.exlibrisgroup.com
esploro_inst_code = 01ESPLORO_INST
path = https://previousrepository.portal.edu/uni_pubs/157
The URL that the customer should redirect to is:

https://myuniveristy.esploro.exlibrisgroup.com/esplorows/assetMapper?instCode=01ESPLORO_INST&path=https%3A%2F%2Fpreviousrepository.portal.edu%2Funi_pubs%2F157
Please make sure to contact Ex Libris support before applying any redirect in order to make sure that the proper redirect configuration and mapping are set.

To allow continued SEO support when doing the redirection, you need to return to the requester a 301 http code ("Moved Permanently").

The asset redirect matching process is performed as follows:

Each asset page URL or a file link is expected to have a unique string in the URL that was also migrated to Esploro as a value in a field to help identify the relevant asset in Esploro. The URL should also have a unique string that could help identify if the URL is to an asset page or to a file link. With this information, the customer needs to contact Ex Libris to configure the relevant mapping for the redirect.
After Ex Libris was contacted to make the necessary configuration and a redirect was applied by the customer to redirect all previous repository portal URL requests to the Esploro Research Portal, a request to the previous repository portal is directed to the Esploro Research Portal.
The Esploro Research Portal decodes the path parameter from the redirected request (original URL).
If the original URL is to an asset page, then:
- If the asset is found, then the user is redirected to the asset page in the Research Portal.
- If the asset is not found, then the user is redirected to the Research Portal home page.
If the original URL is to an asset file, then:
- If the asset and the file are found, then the user is redirected to the specific file in the Esploro Viewer.
- If the asset is found but the file is not found, then the user is redirected to the asset page in the Research Portal.
- If the asset is not found, then the user is redirected to the Research Portal home page.
Any other original URL or any other mismatch will redirect the user to the Research Portal home page.

Workflows and Terminology

Researchers create research outputs, such as books, articles, or conference proceedings, that can be submitted to Esploro's repository. Affiliated researchers are researchers who are currently affiliated with the institution. Non-affiliated researchers are researchers who are external to the institution but have collaborated or co-authored outputs with one or more affiliated researchers.

Researchers can submit outputs as research assets (or just assets) using a dedicated deposit interface. Alternately, research librarians (administrators) can submit them on behalf of the researcher using the Esploro administrator user interface (admin UI). While assets are in the process of submission (before they are approved), the assets are known as research deposits (or just deposits). When an administrator submits an asset on behalf of a researcher, the deposit is called a staff-mediated research deposit.

Esploro also uses an automated processes to capture research outputs deposited to other repositories. Esploro identifies these outputs as published by the faculty, captures the metadata associated with them, and adds them to the repository, thus reducing the workload on administrators and faculty. These assets are known as imported assets.

The researcher who made the deposit, or for whom an administrator made the deposit, is the asset owner. The owner and other researchers who are authors of the asset are called creators. Any other people or organizations associated with the creation of the asset are called contributors.

In Esploro, assets include research asset metadata (or just metadata), which contains information about the asset, and optionally contain the digital files that hold the actual research output (or links to them). The metadata includes access rights, license information, asset description, and so forth.

Assets are associated with researchers, as well as with specific departments in the institution, called research organization units (or just organization units). Example units might be the institution, a specific school, department, faculty, or group.

Assets can be associated with other assets using relationships. For example, one asset may be derived from another asset, or be the source code to another asset.

Each researcher, organization unit, asset, and deposit can also be associated with specific areas of research, or research topics. A large list of research topics are predefined, but you can add your own when submitting or editing an asset. Areas of research that you add are called subjects. For the Australia/New Zealand region, you can ask Ex Libris to enable ANZ research topics (fields of research and socio-economic objectives) in place of the default topics.

A grant is money or other funding provided by an organization to assist in creating an asset. A researcher who is awarded a grant is known as an investigator. Assets or investigators can be associated with multiple grants, and grants can be associated with multiple assets or investigators. A grant is associated with a single organization, but an organization can be associated with multiple grants. Esploro enables you to manage information about grants and associate grants with assets and/or researchers, mostly for reporting purposes in Esploro Analytics.

By default, deposits are not immediately publicly available in Esploro. These assets are in Submitted status when not assigned to an administrator, or Under Review otherwise. Esploro creates a task for each deposit on behalf of the institute. Deposits can be assigned to a specific administrator to work on. The administrator evaluates the deposit, communicates with the researcher and adds or corrects information to the deposit, as required, before approving the deposit. Alternately, the administrator can return the deposit for more information or corrections (in which case the researchers can resubmit the deposit) or delete the deposit. Once approved, the task is removed and the asset becomes a public part of the repository. If a deposit is deleted, the asset is removed from Esploro. Note that the administrator can continue to limit access to the asset in various ways.

Esploro Terminology
Term	Description
Admin UI	The Esploro administrator user interface.
Asset	A research output from a researcher. The asset includes metadata about the asset, as well as either the digital files that comprise the output or links to the output.
Asset category	A conceptual category associated with a research asset See Research Asset Categories and Types.
Asset metadata	The information part of an asset that describes the research asset and contains its status and other information.
Asset Type	The specific type of research asset, such as Journal Article, Book Chapter, or Dataset. Asset types are grouped by asset category See Research Asset Categories and Types.
Contributor	Any person or organization, other than creators, who contributes to a research asset.
Creator	The owner and any other person who is considered the author or creator of the asset.
Deposit	A research asset before it is approved to be part of Esploro's repository (status Draft, Submitted, or Returned).
DOI	Digital Object Identifier, used to identify resources and the entities that register them.
ETD	Electronic Theses and Dissertations
External ETD	An ETD created in association with an institution or organization other than the local one.
External organization unit	A research organization unit that is external to the institution.
Funder	The organization that funds a grant. In Esploro, funders are selected from external research organizations.
Funder agency	A sub-unit of a funder. In Esploro, funders are selected from external research organizations.
Grant	Money or other funding provided by an organization to assist in creating an asset.
Investigator	A researcher who was awarded a grant.
Originating system ID	When importing assets, this is the ID of the asset from the originating system.
Owner	The researcher who deposits an asset, or for whom an administrator deposits an asset.
Publishing profile	A configuration that either immediately publishes a set of research assets, schedules a set of research assets to be published, or provides a means to publish a set of research assets on demand.
Relationship	A connection between two assets, such as one being a part of another.
Research organization unit	The specific area within an organization under which a researcher is submitting a research asset, or with which a researcher is affiliated. The unit may be associated with the researcher and/or the asset.
Repository	An institution's collection of assets.
Research topic	The subject of the research asset, such as Biology or History. See Research Topics. For the Australia/New Zealand region, you can ask Ex Libris to enable ANZ research topics (Fields of Research and Socio-Economic Objectives) in place of the default topics.
Researcher	A person who creates or contributes to a research asset. In Esploro, an institution's researchers must also be users: an administrator adds the person as a user and then tags the person as a researcher, adding information relevant for their researcher role. Alternatively, an administrator can upload researchers in bulk, adding them as users and researchers simultaneously.
Researcher Proxy	A person (who may or may not be a researcher) who manages the assets of another person (who is a researcher).
Staff-mediated research deposit	A deposit submitted on behalf of a researcher by an administrator.
Subject	A research topic added by the user.

Research Organization Units

Research organization units are academic departments and sub-units that specify the general or specific area under which a paper or work was produced. For example, a research organization unit might be English Literature Department, a sub-unit of the Humanities faculty.

Research organization units are configured as a tree structure. The top level is your institution, with sub-units and sub-units of sub-units as required, up to 6 levels.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI) Registration

For an introduction to DOIs, see the Overview in the DOI Handbook. For DOI integration see DOI Integration.

Esploro can mint DOIs on behalf of your institution, acting as a go-between for you and a DOI registration agency. Currently, Esploro provides this service for institutions that work with DataCite and CrossRef. You must have an account with one of these sites. We are currently integrated with DataCite and CrossRef, and we provide all their required fields. See the DataCite and CrossRef schema pages for more details.

DOIs include two parts: a prefix representing your institution, assigned to you by the agency, and a suffix that uniquely identifies a resource.

After configuring the institution's DOI format, then, when adding assets / deposits to Esploro:

You can add an already registered DOI to the asset. No information is exchanged between Esploro and the DOI registration agency, since the DOI is already registered.
You can reserve DOIs and define and edit on which asset category / type to make a registration without staff assistance. Staff must enable this feature for researchers.
You can ask Esploro to generate a DOI. The generated DOI is reserved for the asset, after which you can then ask Esploro to register the DOI with the registration agency, This process happens automatically and Esploro notifies you on success or failure.

Esploro interfaces directly with DOI registration agencies to register and update DOIs. A nightly job updates the DOI registration agencies with changes to your assets.

When you register a DOI and a dataset does not include a file or a link to content, a warning is displayed that the dataset does not have one and prompts you to cancel the registration.

Unapproved deposits cannot be registered (Register DOI) until the approval process is complete.

Migrating DOIs to Esploro: As part of your migration to Esploro, any DOIs that you previously have registered with DOI registration agencies, but want to migrate to Esploro, will be handled in two stages:

Assets with DOIs that are intended to be managed using Esploro are flagged (this is done in coordination with the Ex Libris implementation team). Migrating the DOIs (updating the DOI registration agencies to point to Esploro) occurs in the next step, which might occur at a later time.
When configured to do so (see Configuring DOI Agencies), Esploro updates the DOI registration agencies with the migrated assets that were flagged in step 1 and removes the flags from the assets.

Adding Handle Identifiers

You can add persistent identifiers, called handles, to assets that allow them to be located in case the URL of the asset changes. These Handles resolve using CNRI’s Handle.Net system. Before you can add handles to assets, your institution must be registered in the Handle.Net registry from where it receives a unique prefix code to add to all of the institution's handles. A registered institution in Handle.Net is referred to as a Naming Authority. In addition, you must download and install the Handle.Net handles sever to use this integration

The handle identifier consists of the institution's prefix as well as a suffix which can consist of a fixed element for all the institutions handles and a sequential number, unique to that handle. For example, in the handle 10536/DRO/DU:30028653, 10536/DRO/ is the prefix, DU: is a fixed part of the suffix, and 30028653 is the sequential number unique to the handle.

Handles can be added manually to each asset or in bulk using a scheduled job. In either case, before you can add a handles to an asset, you must configure your Handle information in Esploro (Configuration > Repository > Integrations > Handle Server Integration). Indicate your institution's unique prefix, a fixed element of the suffix if desired, and the number with which to begin the sequential numbering.

For more information, see Configuring Handle Server Integration.

To automatically add a handle to an asset:

Run the Esploro register handles job. For more information, see Research Jobs Configuration. The job performs the following actions:

Adds handles to approved assets that do not have a handle yet.
Registers the handles on the Handle server.
Removes handles from the Handle server for deleted assets.

To manually add a handle to an asset:

Add a handle identifier to an asset from the Handle field in the Asset Details section when adding or editing assets. You can enter a handle identifier manually or select the Generate Handle PID button to add one automatically.
For more information on adding handle identifiers to assets, see the Asset Details section on the relevant Adding Staff-Mediated Research Deposits - Publication page.
Export the handle identifiers to the Handle server. There are two options for this:
1. Run the Export Esploro Handles job is a Publishing Profile (Repository > Publishing > Manage Publishing Profiles) and includes an option to schedule it in addition to running it manually. Esploro automatically collects all approved assets with handles in the Approved Handles for Export set. Run the job on this set to place the handle information and URL mapping on an FTP server from where the handle server can upload it.
2. Esploro hosts a handle server for customers to use and register handles to without the need to export the handles information to a locally installed handle server for registration. When a unique identifier is created for an asset, it can be registered directly to the handle server without running a job. To register the handle, select Register Handle from the asset's row action menu on the Research Assets list. To enable this feature, contact Ex Libris Customer Support.
For information on configuring the parameters of this job, see Export Esploro Handles.

Esploro User Roles

To view Esploro user roles, see User Roles - Descriptions and Accessible Components.

Research Asset Categories and Types

A research asset may have one of the following categories.

Research Asset Categories and Types
Category	Code	Types	Type Code	Notes
Conference	conference	Conference Paper Conference Poster Conference Presentation Conference Program Poster - A poster other than a conference Presentation - A presentation other than a conference	conference.conferencePaper conference.conferencePoster conference.conferencePresentation conference.conferenceProgram conference.eventposter conference.presentation
Creative Work	creativeWork	Choreography Dance Design and architecture Drama Essay Exhibition catalog Fiction (novel, short story) Film Musical composition Musical performance Musical score New media Non-fiction Other creative work Painting Poetry Script Sculpture Set design Theater	creativeWork.choreography creativeWork.dance creativeWork.designAndArchitecture creativeWork.drama creativeWork.essay creativeWork.exhibitionCatalog creativeWork.fiction creativeWork.film creativeWork.musicalComposition creativeWork.musicalPerformance creativeWork.musicalScore creativeWork.newMedia creativeWork.nonFiction creativeWork.other creativeWork.painting creativeWork.poetry creativeWork.script creativeWork.sculpture creativeWork.setDesign creativeWork.theater
Dataset	dataset	Dataset	dataset.dataset
ETD	etd	ETD doctoral ETD graduate ETD undergraduate	etd.doctoral etd.graduate etd.undergraduate	Is submitted using a distinct process.
External ETD	etdexternal	External ETD doctoral External ETD graduate External ETD undergraduate	etdexternal.doctoral_external etdexternal.graduate_external etdexternal.undergraduate_external	Is submitted using a distinct process.
Interactive Resource	interactiveResource	Blog Podcast Virtual reality environment Webinar Website	interactiveResource.blog interactiveResource.podcast interactiveResource.virtualRealityEnvironment interactiveResource.webinar interactiveResource.website
More	other	Map Model Other	other.map other.model other.other
Patent	patent	Patent	patent.patent
Posted Content	postedContent	Accepted manuscript Preprint Working paper	postedContent.acceptedManuscript postedContent.preprint postedContent.workingPaper
Publication	publication	Abstract Annotation Bibliography Book Book chapter Book review Conference proceeding Dictionary entry Edited book Editorial Encyclopedia entry Journal article Journal issue Letter Magazine article Newsletter article Newspaper article Report Technical documentation Translation	publication.abstract publication.annotation publication.bibliography publication.book publication.bookChapter publication.bookReview publication.conferenceProceeding publication.dictionaryEntry publication.editedBook publication.editorial publication.encyclopediaEntry publication.journalArticle publication.journalIssue publication.letter publication.magazineArticle publication.newsletterArticle publication.newspaperArticle publication.report publication.technicalDocumentation publication.translation
Software	software	Code Workflow	software.code software.workflow
Teaching and Learning	teaching	Activity Assignment/exercise Case study Course workbook Demonstration Flashcards Lecture Manual Other Learning objects Outline Question bank Study guide Syllabus Textbook Tutorial Workbook	teaching.activity teaching.assignment teaching.casestudy teaching.coursemodule teaching.demonstration teaching.flashcards teaching.lecture teaching.manual teaching.other teaching.outline teaching.questionbank teaching.studyguide teaching.syllabus teaching.textbook teaching.tutorial teaching.workbook

Research Asset Statuses

A research asset may have one of the following statuses.

Research Asset / Deposit Statuses
Status	Deposit	Description
Draft	Yes	Saved, but not yet submitted for approval.
Submitted	Yes	Submitted and waiting for approval.
Under Review	Yes	Assigned to an administrator for review and/or approval.
Returned	Yes	Returned to the submitter for corrections or clarifications.
Approved	No	Approved. No longer considered a deposit.
Imported	No	Imported from an import profile.

The Esploro Administrator User Interface

For more information on the Esploro interface, see The Esploro User Interface. Additional or changed features are described in the following sections.

Researcher Information Icon

The researcher information icon is similar to the User Information Icon, but contains the researcher's affiliations.

Researcher Information Icon

Administration Tasks

Managing administrator roles – Although you manage researchers on the Find and Manage Researchers page (see Managing Researchers), Esploro administrators are managed on the Find and Manage Users page. See Esploro User Roles.
Managing address information for research-related institutes – Institutes can have contact information specific for Esploro-related communication. See Configuring Institution/Library Contact Information.
Managing Esploro-related letters – Letters may be sent to researchers or libraries after various events occur in Esploro. See Configuring Alma Letters. You can manage whether a user receives these letters while managing the researcher or the user record.
Configuring the Users integration profile (SIS) for Esploro – You can configure whether the Student Information System is sending only user information, researcher information, or both, as well as which fields are included in the file. See Student Information Systems.
Importing files for sets of assets – See the Import Research Assets Files job in Running Manual Jobs on Defined Sets.
Deleting and purging users – A researcher associated with an asset or grant cannot be deleted on the Find and Manage Users page. When using bulk deletion (see Purging Users), affiliated researchers that are associated with assets or grants and that will be purged by the Purge Users job become non-affiliated researchers. Some of their user information is retained, including name, IDs, emails, and other non-affiliated researcher fields.
User identifiers related to Esploro appear in the User Identifier Types code table; see Managing User Identifiers. Esploro related identifiers include LCNAF (Library of Congress Name Authority File Number), ORCID, Researcher ID, and Wikidata, and VIAF.

Introduction

The Researcher Profiles

The Research Portal

Redirect Previous Repository's Portal URLs to the Research Portal

Workflows and Terminology

Research Organization Units

Digital Object Identifier (DOI) Registration

Adding Handle Identifiers

Esploro User Roles

Research Asset Categories and Types

Research Asset Statuses

The Esploro Administrator User Interface

Researcher Information Icon

Administration Tasks

Additional References