ArcDoc

Climate Service Center Germany (GERICS), an institution of Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht, has announced the development and establishment of a system for archiving and documentation in autumn 2013. The system should be build up on open source components. Our extensive product concept convinced and in spring 2014, the web portal ArcDoc was ready for use.

Project Description

The national institution GERICS operates autonomous and functions as interface between science, economy, politics and administration. A main goal is the preparation of current scientific knowledge for the practical use. 

The development process as well as all products and services developed at GERCS have to be documented. Methods and base data have to be reproducible. Each staff member must have access to this documentation at any time. The system for archiving and documenting has to be extendible. The use takes place cross-platform over windows, linux or MacOS. Besides the established document and image formats, the system must also be able to work with scientific data formats.

To be able to adapt the system in the future, the use of current open source components like MySQL and Python was required. A searching function that is efficient, easy to handle and visually attractive is also essential.

Implementation

ArcDoc is realized with open source components. The business logic is the main item of ArcDoc. It is implemented in Python and handles all processes dealing with the import of documents, the filing of these documents, the connection of the different plugins, the indexing and searching etc. A web portal that is implemented in Django complements the business logic.

The web portal allows the import of documents, the administration, the input of key words and searching. Keywords, categories, languages, user access etc. can be managed over the web portal.

ArcDoc allows the access to different other tools like MediaWiki or Redmine. The modular implementation allows the future connection of additional tools using plugins. The searching functionality includes the content of the integrated tools.

The access to these contents and documents as well as the extensive searching functionality turn ArcDoc into a knowledge management system with high functionality.

Key Data of the Project

Project start: January 2014

Project duration: 6 month

Find out more about GERICS at http://www.climate-service-center.de/