• Overview
• Getting Started
  • Requirements
  • Installation Instructions
  • Configuration Settings
  • Testing Installation
• Execution
• Versioning
• Continuous Integration
• Changelog
• Authors
• License

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Overview

This software tool is designed to enable the curatorial review of datasets that are deposited into the University of Arizona Research Data Repository (ReDATA). It follows a workflow that was developed by members of the Research Data Services Team at the University of Arizona Libraries. The software has a number of backend features, such as:

1. Retrieving private datasets from the Figshare API that are undergoing curatorial review
2. Constructing a README.txt file based on information from the deposit's metadata and information provided by the researchers using a Qualtrics form that walks the users through additional information
3. Retrieving a Deposit Agreement Form from Qualtrics, which is a requirement for all ReDATA deposits
4. Retrieving a copy of Curatorial Review Report template (MS-Word) for ReDATA curators to complete.
5. Creating a hierarchical folder structure the supports library preservation and archive
6. Supporting ReDATA curators with access and workflow management through standard UNIX commands

These backend services ingest the datasets and accompanying files (described above) onto a curatorial "staging" server with attached storage to enable the full curatorial review procedure.

Although not available yet, a web application will serve as the front-end framework to allow for easy navigation through the curatorial review. Also, integration with the Trello REST API is another feature to further assist with the curatorial review process.

Getting Started

These instructions will have the code running on your local or virtual machine.

Requirements

You will need the following to have a working copy of this software. See installation steps.

1. Python (>=v3.13)
2. figshare - ReDATA's forked copy of cognoma's figshare

The following packages in requirements.txt and their dependencies are automatically installed by this software, no need to install them separately.

1. jinja2 (3.1.6)
2. html2text (2025.4.15)
3. ldcoolp-figshare (0.4.0)

Installation Instructions

Python and setting up a mamba environment

First, install a working version of Python (>=3.13). We recommend using the Mamba package installer. Mamba is a drop-in replacement for Anaconda and you will be able to use conda commands in an environment created with mamba. After installing Mamba, set conda-forge as the default channel to fetch packages. Run the following commands to set conda-forge as the default channel and remove Ananconda channels.

Add conda-forge to your channels:

conda config --add channels conda-forge

Set strict channel priority:

conda config --set channel_priority strict

Remove Anaconda channels:

conda config --remove channels defaults

After you have installed and configured Mamba, you will want to create a separate mamba environment and activate it:

$ mamba create -n curation python=3.13
$ mamba activate curation

With the activated mamba environment, next clone the UA Libraries' forked copy of figshare. Ensure the user has read and write permissions to the cloned folder and install with the setup.py script:

(curation) $ cd /path/to/parent/folder
(curation) $ git clone https://github.com/UAL-RE/figshare.git

(curation) $ cd /path/to/parent/folder/figshare
(curation) $ python setup.py develop

Then, clone this repository (LD-Cool-P) into the parent folder and install with the setup.py script:

(curation) $ cd /path/to/parent/folder
(curation) $ git clone https://github.com/UAL-RE/LD-Cool-P.git

(curation) $ cd /path/to/parent/folder/LD-Cool-P
(curation) $ python setup.py develop

This will automatically install the required pandas, requests, numpy, jinja2, tabulate, and html2text packages.

You can confirm installation via mamba list

(curation) $ mamba list ldcoolp

You should see that the version is 1.3.1.

Configuration Settings

Configuration settings are specified through the --config flag in the scripts described below. For example:

    --config ldcoolp/config/myconfig.ini

Note that in the __init.py__, there's a default setting:

config_dir       = path.join(co_path, 'config/')
main_config_file = 'default.ini'
config_file      = path.join(config_dir, main_config_file)

This is used when a configuration file is not provided in all modules and functions that require settings.

A template for this configuration file is provided. There are a number of config sections, including figshare, curation, and qualtrics. The most important settings to define are those populated with ***override***. Additional settings to change are figshare stage flag, and curation source. Since the configuration settings will continue to evolve, we refer users to the documented information provided.

These configurations are read in through the config sub-package.

Execution

There are or will be a number of ways to execute the software.

Command-line

There are two ways to execute the software using the command-line. The first is to use ipython/python:

article_id = 13456789
from ldcoolp.curation import main
main.workflow(article_id)

Here the article_id is the unique ID that Figshare provides for any article. The above script will perform the prerequisite steps of:

1. Retrieving the data using the Figshare API
2. Retrieve a copy of the curatorial review report
3. Attempt to retrieve the deposit agreement form through the Qualtrics API or provide a custom link to provide to the depositor
4. Generate a README.txt file
5. Follow our curation workflow by relocating the content from 1.ToDo to the 2.UnderReview

Another command-line approach is using the python script called prereq_script:

(curation) $ ./ldcoolp/scripts/prereq_script \
             --config ldcoolp/config/default.ini --article_id 12345678

Additional python scripts are available to

1. Retrieve the list of pending curation and their article_id:

   (curation) $ ./ldcoolp/scripts/get_curation_list \
                --config ldcoolp/config/default.ini
   

2. Retrieve the Qualtrics URLs to provide to an author/depositor:

   (curation) $ ./ldcoolp/scripts/generate_qualtrics_link \
                --config ldcoolp/config/default.ini --article_id 12345678
   

3. Update the README.txt file for changes to metadata information:

   (curation) $ ./ldcoolp/scripts/update_readme \
                --config ldcoolp/config/default.ini --article_id 12345678
   

4. Move between curation stages (either next, back, or to publish):

   (curation) $ ./ldcoolp/scripts/perform_move --direction next \
                --config ldcoolp/config/default.ini --article_id 12345678
   (curation) $ ./ldcoolp/scripts/perform_move --direction back \
                --config ldcoolp/config/default.ini --article_id 12345678
   (curation) $ ./ldcoolp/scripts/perform_move --direction publish \
                --config ldcoolp/config/default.ini --article_id 12345678
   

Versioning

We use SemVer for versioning. For the versions available, see the tags on this repository.

Changelog

See the CHANGELOG for all changes since project inception.

See also the list of contributors who participated in this project.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.