HarvestRoad developed Hive for use as a Federated Digital Content Repository (FDRS). This means that it is designed to establish a bridge between islands of content within and across multiple institutions or organisations, regardless of the type of content or purpose for its existence.

· Unique combination of document and content management, with built-in core features of application server platform

· Secure repository for any digital object or metadata to describe any web or physical resource

· Flexible content architecture that supports multiple repositories (bureaus) per server (eg. ASP Hosting for separate organisations on the one server) and unlimited category levels

· Robust repository management services, including check in/out, controlled editing, major and minor revisions, integrated unlimited-step workflow routing

· Groups, roles and user management

· Advanced Copyright Engine, including the ability to report on content usage for the purposes of meeting obligations of independent auditing and license compliance

· “Timed Visibility” on categories, courses, content items and the relationships between content and courses

· External authentication module to synchronise Hive Users, Groups and their attributes with an external directory, such as LDAP.