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IDEALS: IDEALS Administrators

This guide has information on how to deposit and access IDEALS materials for individuals and collection administrators.

Structure of IDEALS

IDEALS content is organized around communities which generally correspond to scholarly or research units such as schools, departments, labs and research centers. Communities can be organized into sub-communities, often used for narrower research units, or collections. A collection can contain deposited items. A full list of communities, sub-communities, and collections is available to browse.

IDEALS requires every community to have an administrator who is responsible for sub-communities and items; for example, communities can decide:

  • The structure of their community;

  • Who can submit items;

  • Whether there will be a review process for submitted items; and

  • Whether there will be access restrictions on a specific collection.

Editing Items

To Add Additional Files:

Log into IDEALS and go to the item page. On the left hand side of the screen, under the Manage heading, click the "Edit This Item" button.

Click on the "Item Bitstreams" tab at the top of the page. At the bottom of the screen there will be a text link that says "Upload a New Bitstream." Use this button to add a new file.

The first line prompts you to choose a bundle; use the default option, "Content Files (default)." When you have chosen the file to upload, click the "Upload" button at the bottom of the page.

To Edit Item Metadata: 

Log into IDEALS and go to the page for the item whose metadata you want to change. In the left sidebar, under the Manage heading, click the link that says "Edit this Item". On the Edit Item page, click the "Item Metadata" tab at the top of the page.

Starting Communities and Collections

To ensure that the type of material you would like to include in your community meets the IDEALS criteria, review the:

To Start a Community:

Departments, research centers, research labs, and other groups may establish a community in IDEALS for your research and scholarship. 

To start a new community, email ideals@library.illinois.edu with the following information:

  • Name and email of the community liaison (the administrator for the community)
  • Basic information about the community, including name, requesting organization/unit, and a brief description of the type of material to be included
  • If you would like IDEALS staff to set up the structure of the community (in terms of sub-communities and collections), provide an outline 
  • If you want specific individuals or a group to have permissions to deposit into collections or to manage sub-communities and collections, please provide the netIDs of those people (you can manage this task yourself as well). Please note that the IDEALS staff can also use Active Directory groups to do this (and prefers to do so)
  • Any other special arrangements that you need such as access restrictions.

Managing Communities and Collections

Only a community administrator may manage a community or collection. 

As a community or collection administrator, when you navigate to your community or collection in IDEALS, you will see a box in the left sidebar labeled Manage. The Manage boxes for communities and collections contain slightly different options, but both contain an "Edit" button.

For detailed information about your privileges as an IDEALS Administrator, please visit the IDEALS Wiki page on Managing Communities and Collections.