Contribute to the DSpace Development Fund

The newly established DSpace Development Fund supports the development of new features prioritized by DSpace Governance. For a list of planned features see the fund wiki page.

Date

Attendees

Goals

  • Identify and document 2-3 marketing and fundraising activities aimed at generating greater revenue from the

    community beyond the US and Canada

    ○ Create ambassador stipends for member representation at conferences

    ○ Target regional and consortial efforts

    ○ Discuss how RSPs could figure in for mutual benefit

  • Promote DSpace 7 new UI - Review outreach activities underway

Notes

  • Clarification on Registered Service Providers (RSPs). We've had a least one leave recently. Who are current ones
  • DSpace has high reliance on RSPs in general
  • Difficulty getting funding in Europe
    • Hard to join a "membership organization" in Europe?
    • Do we need to premier DSpace as a "product" to get more funding?
    • How does OCLC handle/search out funding in Europe?
      • Michele will ask Rebecca Bryant for any info they can provide
    • More engagement at the DuraSpace level in Europe
      • What is the true value of membership? What do organizations get besides governance?
      • May need to show/provide services (but ones not in competition with RSPs)
      • Aim to increase membership in Europe..this means we need "more clients"
      • DuraSpace branded events in Europe
        • Can European events be used to attract more members?
  • Monthly meetings with RSPs + DuraSpace
    • Can we ask/require all RSPs provide a certain amount of development back to open source DSpace?
    • DuraSpace may want/need to have more one-on-one meetings with individual RSPs
      • In larger RSP meetings, individual RSPs are less likely to be frank (as they are on the phone with their competitors)
  • Possible extra benefits to Membership (besides the vague concept of governance)
    • Added to a DSpace security mailing list. Be notified of security issues immediately (perhaps even before patched), and before the issue becomes public on lists, etc.
    • Possible priority bug fixes / patches / features.  Members could request certain fixes/features, and RSPs could be required to fix those priority features
  • What is the difference between the membership levels? Few reasons to go for "Gold" or "Silver" over Bronze.  Need unique benefits at each level.
  • Governance alone is NOT ENOUGH to entice most institutions to become members.
    • Training or support would be a good benefit
    • Discounts on workshops or webinars? Or Members get these for free, while other users pay some sort of fee?
  • What other services can we provide that may be of interest to members?
    • Possible survey of members and non-members to see what they want/require out of membership?
  • Leadership Group & Steering Group make more sense if you can make decisions on priorities / needs / fixes in DSpace.  While Leadership/Steering has this role, it's very vague and hard to point at how individual members affect those priorities.
  • Membership levels
    • Bronze level membership is already too costly for many
    • Is there a level below Bronze that we could create? "Friend of DSpace"?
    • Something in the 500 Euro range? Under 1,000 Euros?
  • Other possible benefits for membership
    • 1-2 tickets per year that a member can request be fixed (May be hard to achieve, as tickets are different sizes)
    • Aforementioned private security list
    • RSP discounts or "free" work on specific tickets (How would this work for RSPs though? This may be easier to implement for host services than RSPs)
    • "Tokens" or "votes":  Based on level of membership, your institution has a certain number of "tokens" that you can spend (per year) to vote on specific features/tickets to be implemented/resolved. If a feature or ticket passes a minimum threshold (of votes/tokens), then it would be prioritized for the next release (and/or an RSP would be assigned to implement that ticket for all DSpace users).
  • Membership vs RSP work. Why buy membership if I can just hire an RSP to fix things in my own repo?
    • Membership benefits are all about the long term. E.g. if you had tokens/votes to help prioritize features, it helps with a long term need. If the code goes back into the open source software it also benefits your local institution (as it makes future upgrades easier, less local custom code)
    • RSPs sell features that meet short term needs. You can quickly buy a specific feature only provided by a specific RSP, and it'll meet your immediate need. But, long term, it may also complicate future upgrades and/or you become more reliant on that RSP (or their features).
  • DuraSpace should investigate providing services via partnership with RSPs (e.g. DSpaceDirect via RSPs)
  • Summary of first hour:
    • Need to revisit / clarify membership benefits. Some possibilities:
      • Security notification list
      • Event / webinar discounts (or free for members)
      • Discounted RSP support hours?
      • Tokens with which to vote on specific tickets. Those that pass a minimum threshold are prioritized for next relese.  Tokens would need an expiration date (perhaps one year)
      • Training or support discounts?
    • Bronze membership may be too costly
      • Need a level below it. 500-1,000 Euro. Friend of DSpace?  Some less valuable metal?
    • Review & survey community on Membership & Governance model
      • What works and what doesn't?
      • What do they want out of membership? What would entice them to join?
    • Revise Registered Service Provider contract (with DuraSpace)
      • Require contributing code back to open source community (or additional $$ beyond base fees?)
      • Revenue and/or hours given back as well
      • Annual review of RSPs
      • Two levels/tiers of RSPs?
      • Include a requirement to close specific (high priority) tickets which are voted on by members? Or some level of development is required based on contract
  • DSpace.org (and similar) should have a link to "donate" $$ at all the various locations where you can download the software and/or read the documentation
  • Side Conversation: Higher level strategic directions. What are we doing here? 
    • What is the value of thousands of repositories worldwide instead of just one hosted solution?
    • What is the impact of repositories on my users/researchers/scholarship?
    • What not do this all together (i.e. one solution cross DSpace, Fedora, Hydra, etc)
    • These questions were brought up during CNI...mentioned again here
    • COAR report on institutional repositories.  Local repositories are more distributed, whereas a single centralized repository could be "bought" (or there's the risk of that). Though DuraSpace could protect against such risk
    • Even if the "one repository" was possible, could we actually get all these institutions to agree on platform, metadata standards, preservation strategies, etc.  Seems unlikely
    • Perhaps these sorts of higher level strategic discussions would be worth spending more time on during future DuraSpace Member Summit Meetings?
    • Would be nice to have the Summit be a 1/2 day to a day longer, and allow time for these broader discussions to arise (cross project). 
      • DuraSpace could sit back and simply facilitate the discussion and listen more to its members
      • Summit could be more about establishing the higher level strategic direction of DuraSpace (and it's products/projects & services)
      • Then smaller meetings could take place per project (e.g. user groups around the world) which can take a cue from this strategic direction.
  • DSpace 7 Updates & Needs
    • 4 main institutions contributing at this time... Atmire & Texas A&M (Angular UI), 4Science & Georgetown (REST API)
    • Could use more developers. The early work has been establishing a process, best practices, etc.  We anticipate that more folks can get involved more easily in the near future
    • Angular UI workshop & demo at OR2017
    • Would be nice to have regional workshops / training sessions
      • E.g. Georgetown may hold a user group in the fall. Could do some training/updates there potentially?
      • Opportunities for others to sponsor such workshops. Also could be a non-member fee (or a member discount) to provide a small amount of funding back to the project?

Action items

  • Revisit Membership benefits. Can we define/provide more tangible benefits that will entice further members?
  • Possible survey on membership / governance to members & non-members. What works and what doesn't?  What do they want out of membership (what would entice them to join)?
  • Revisit Registered Service Provider contract (with DuraSpace). Can we require that all RSPs contribute back open source code to DSpace alongside revenue sharing / fixed fees? Perhaps an annual review of RSPs?
  • DSpace.org should have a link to "Donate to DSpace" on the page where you download software / find docs

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