Vireo 2.0 Released

The latest major version of the turnkey solution for Electronic Thesis & Dissertation (ETD) management has been released. Vireo 2.0 brings many major new features to the system which will be a wide interest to many in the community. This release follows on 9 months of continuous development from Texas A&M University Libraries with wide participation from other organizations such as the Texas Digital Library and the University of Illinois at Urban-Champaign.

New Fields

Many of the most requested features revolve around collecting additional data from the student. These new fields allow for easier processing of submission or collecting key data that was not previously available.

  • Language

    This field allows the student to select from a pre-defined list of languages. The primary motivation for this field is for compatibility with ProQuest as they require the language of an ETD to be identified.

  • Subjects

    The field allows the student to select up to three subjects from a pre-defined list of subjects. As with the previous field the primary motivation for this field for compatibility with ProQuest. The pre-defined list of subjects is defined by ProQuest but may be modified by updating the Excel spreadsheet at /conf/proquest/umi_subjects.xls

  • Published Material

    This field allows for students to describe which sections in their ETD may have been previously published. The field first appears as a checkbox, but when checked a second component is exposed asking the student to identify the material that has been previously published. This enables review staff to identify submissions which may need an additional copyright review before publishing.

  • Defense Date

    This field allows for students to specify when they successfully defended their thesis or dissertation. This date is an important milestone of the process and useful to be recorded with the other metadata about the submission.

  • Program

    This field operates like the College and Department fields have always worked. The Vireo Manager is able to create a list of available programs from which the student chooses. This field allows for different review process for different programs.

  • Dynamic Committee Member Role Types

    Previous version of Vireo had a single check box to specify whether a committee member was the chair or co-chair of a committee. This did not allow for additional role types such as Department Head, or Directory of Research to be specified on the student committee. Further more, some schools do not use the “chair” language instead they follow “Supervisor” or another nomenclature. This new field allows the Vireo Manager to defined role types that are available at each degree level.

  • Administrative and Source files

    Previous versions of Vireo allowed the student to upload a primary PDF manuscript, along with any number of supplementary documents. In addition to these categories Vireo 2.0 introduces two additional types: administrative files and source files. Administrative files are things like signed authorization forms or other items required by local workflow. The administrative files will not leave Vireo. Source files are the original word or LaTex documents used to generate the primary PDF manuscript. These source files are commonly deposited in to the Institutional Repository but not made publicly available. They may be used in the future to enhance the preservation potential of the items being deposited.

  • Reviewer Notes

    This field is not available to students. Instead it is only available to Vireo Reviewers and Managers. The field is visible under the view tab just above the table of action logs. This is a free-form textarea where reviewers can leave private notes about the submission and it’s state.

New Features

  • ProQuest Export

    The ProQuest export format has been enhanced supporting the new ProQuest centric fields that have been incorporated into Vireo. We are still awaiting word from ProQuest for them to validate the new format.

  • Remove item individually from filter lists

    This feature helps make the new batch features below more useful. Batch features work based off of filter searches. Crafting a filter search to target a specific population of submissions will sometimes leave one or two that just are not ready to be updated. Using this feature the reviewer can remove individual submissions from the filter, before running a batch operation on them.

  • Batch send email to students

    This allows mass emails to be sent out to students about important information. You may send an individual email or select from among the email templates. All the standard variables are available.

  • Batch assign submissions

    This batch feature allows for a Vireo manager to assign batches of submissions to a particular individuals.

  • Batch status change

    This batch feature allows for batches of submissions to change state when ready. Using this feature the Vireo Reviewer can queue up a set of submissions and move them to the next state all at once. Using this feature allows batch publishing of submissions, and if you move the submissions to the canceled state you may also batch delete submissions.

New Settings

  • ProQuest settings

    Several new settings have been added to support the ProQuest export format. The new fields are found under the Application Settings tab and include: ProQuest Institution code, toggle for Open Access publishing, and a toggle for Indexing by Search Engines. This makes configuring the export format much easier by end users.

  • Bulk updates

    Many of the lists under the Configurable Settings tab now have bulk operations. All lists may be sorted or alphabetized, bulk delete is also possible, and some fields have a bulk add feature.

  • Toggle all data field: Disabled, Optional, or Required

    This is a major new feature! All fields (not just the new fields added above) may be configured turned on or off individually. Each field can be set to Disabled, Optional, or Required. Disabled fields are not collected from students, while Optional fields will be displayed to students but they will not be required to provide the data.

  • Customize field labels

    Each field may now have it’s label customized individually. This allows for some institutions to repurpose fields for slightly different data. The name of these fields are only modified for students, else ware in the administrative interface the field will still display it’s original pre-defined name.

  • Customize field help text

    Each field may now have the helptext customized individually. This allows the Vireo Manager to add local institution instructions to particular fields.

  • Customize sticky notes

    The sticky notes shown on the right column during the student submission process may be updated. Vireo Managers may update the text, or add / remove notes.

  • Degree codes

    Formal degree codes (i.e. Ph.D) may be specified for individual degrees under the Application Settings tab. This is primarily to support the ProQuest export format.

I am working on a presentation of new features that were made available in Vireo 2.0 for the TxETDA/USETDA conference, so I may be updating this post as I prepare for that. In addition we are planning on releasing a 2.0.1 release with several bug fixes in February.


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