The Internet Scout Project, a research center at the University of
Wisconsin - Madison, has recently released version 1.1.1 of its free open
source software package CWIS (Collection Workflow Integration System).
CWIS is software to assemble, organize, and share collections of data
about resources, like Yahoo or Google Directory but conforming to
international and academic standards for metadata. CWIS was specifically
created to help build collections of Science, Technology, Engineering,
and Math (STEM) resources and connect them into NSF's National Science
Digital Library, but can be (and is being) used for a wide variety of
other purposes.
A few of the features of CWIS include:
- prepackaged taxonomies - user-definable metadata schema
- recommender system - keyword and fielded search engine
- OAI and RSS export - resource annotations and ratings
CWIS requires a web server that supports PHP and MySQL. The software is
designed for a LAMP (Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP) platform, but is also being
run on OS X, Solaris, and FreeBSD. In a compatible environment, it
normally takes less than ten minutes to get CWIS installed and running.
More information can be found and a copy of CWIS downloaded at:
http://scout.wisc.edu/Projects/CWIS/
Questions about CWIS can be sent to: [log in to unmask]
CWIS development is being funded by a grant from the National Science
Foundation. The project builds upon previous work on the Scout Portal
Toolkit, which was developed under a grant from the Mellon Foundation.
We look forward to your feedback. Thanks!
The Internet Scout Project Team
[log in to unmask]
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