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Contributors are strongly encouraged to obtain the source code using Subversion (SVN). This is very straightforward, and we've published a guide to doing so here: ContributionGuidelines

Repository managers and others wishing to test the new features can visit demo.dspace.org during Testathon (Nov 8-12) or any time after then to provide feedback.

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• Release Coordinator: Peter Dietz, Ohio State University Libraries

1.7.0 Code Committing Rules:

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• Modules which do not reside in DSpace "Trunk" should also follow this rule. If there is major rework to be done on a module, create a "branch" to do that work and migrate it back to the Module's Trunk once it is ready for release.

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Timeline and Proceeding

Proposed Release Timeline (all dates are tentative):

• August 13, 2010 : Milestone 1 - "Feature Decision Day"By this milestone, all major features or major architectural changes for 1.7.0 release should be approved by the DSpace Committers Group and be somewhere in SVN (they need not be fully finished, but should be moving along in their development process).
• October 22, 2010 : Feature Freeze (all features must have initial documentation to be accepted)
• All 1.7.0 features (major and minor) must be finished, committed to Trunk and have initial documentation. After this date, no new features will be accepted for the 1.7.0 release. Any features which are not finished or ready will need to be scheduled for the next DSpace release.
Modules which do not reside in Trunk (e.g. dspace-services) should also undergo a Feature Freeze on this date, so that we can work to stabilize all code used by out-of-the-box DSpace.
• October 29, 2010 : Final Documentation "Due Date"
• All documentation changes need to be submitted, so that they can be cleaned & packaged up in preparation for RC1. This includes Upgrade Documentation, Release Notes, etc.
  • Obviously, if errors are found in docs, they can be changed during testing process, etc. But, the goal here is to attempt to have as close to a final version of the Documentation as possible, in preparation for the RC1 release.
November 5, 2010 : Release Candidate 1
• November 8-12, 2010 : 1.7 Testathon Week
• December 3, 2010 : Release Candidate 2 (if necessary), or Final Release
• December 6-15, 2010 : Final Testing / Bug Fixing (if necessary)
• December 17, 2010 : Final Release

Release Process needs to proceed according to the following Maven release process ReleaseProcedure

New Features

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• AIP Backup / Restore (Tim Donohue/DuraSpace) – Allows for a more complete backup of DSpace into generic METS-based packages known as Archival Information Packages (AIP's). These AIPs could also be used to migrate DSpace content (Communities/Collections/Items) between DSpace and non-DSpace instances that support AIP.
• DSpace Discovery, (contributed by @mire, NV.) A Solr based, faceted search layer to provide a deeper, and more intuitive look at repository contents.
  • Watch the DSpace Discovery introduction video.
• Unit Testing, which will allow each code component to be able to be tested so that it does what it intends to do.
• Most Used Items list, which can replace or complement the existing Recently Submitted Items list.
• PowerPoint Text Extraction Media Filter - Allows for full-text searching of PowerPoint bitstreams
• Curation System (Richard Rodgers/MIT) – Allows curation tools into the system so that the repository admin can perform the tasks as needed from the UI, or on a schedule from the commandline. The initial tasks available are: Profile Bitstream Formats, and Check for Required Metadata. Ideas are welcome on what kind of tasks should exist: Virus checker, onDemand Checksum Checker.
• Google Scholar citation metadata tags.

New Features in XMLUI

• Two XMLUI themes (contributed by @mire, NV.)
  • A function library to aid xmlui theme development which refactors the existing dri2xhtml.
  • Mirage, a theme which is another new look utilizing the new xmlui function library

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• Reducing the cost of browse prunes
• SOLR has received some best practices improvements:
  • Switched to use using autoCommit which reduces to reduce resource exhaustion
  • Added solr.optimize which can called via command line to essentially "defragment" the solr index, resulting in slightly better solr less degradation of performance over time.
• Item bitstream sorting/ordering can be specified according to sequence or name
• Moving the documentation into the Confluence wiki so that workload can be divided, and that the documentation is improved.

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Most command line scripts that have historically resided in \[dspace\]/bin/ were deprecated in 1.6, and are now removed in 1.7. They have been replaced with the configurable command launcher, which eases the cross platform development of scripts. Discussion at: \ [http://jira.dspace.org/jira/browse/DS-646\ |http://jira.dspace.org/jira/browse/DS-646\].

Example usage of the launcher:

One can no longer runThe old way will no longer work, as the task scripts have been removed:

[dspace]/bin/create-administrator

The method of calling the functionality is all performed by the centralized DSpace launcher is now:

[dspace]/bin/dspace create-administrator

Unsure / Postponed for Next Release

Note: Developers, you need to contact the release coordinator and get approval to commit a feature that did not make it in by the feature freeze date. The sooner you tackle this the better the chance that your code will not cause a problem with the release schedule.

Calling a command by its full classname still works by adding dsrun before the classname.

[dspace]/bin/dspace dsrun org.dspace.administer.CreateAdministrator

Postponed for Next Release

There are a few projects that were are strongly desired to make it into the standard DSpace 1.7release, however , work will need to be done to make them into the release, or they are going to be postponed for the next release of DSpace, likely 1.8.

Rewrite of Creative Commons licensing (MIT - ready to go) – would improve upon the features of the current CC licensing submission step
* Currently only against XMLUI from MIT
* Legacy problem – do we update old license to new or not? Currently MIT runs 'split version' with old licenses looking like old, and new look like new.

Google Scholar work (MIT - on hold) – better metadata for Google Scholar (citation tags in header).

Google Scholar has clarified their requirements for the use of this metadata, such that more development is needed for this feature to be contributed.  (Specifically, they require a direct link to a PDF bitstream if the metadata is to be included at all, which is difficult because of the generic content model DSpace has, which could include many variations of bitstreams, with no one way to specify the canonical, representative PDF for the Item (if there even is a PDF for the item).  Discussions are going on with Google Scholar to clarify exactly what defines an acceptable set of citation metadata tags, and what defines a condition where none of it should be included, currently understood as a lack of direct PDF URL.  

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they need further development before they are suitable for widespread use, they may be considered for a future release of DSpace.

• REST API - Using standard web services to CRUD DSpace Objects. A product of previous GSOC.

In Progress

Features that will receive more work before the final release of 1.7

• *New localization - *We have made localization for Serbian language, need several days to finish quality evaluation..

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• • Bojan Suzic 10/27 -- according to documentation in Release Procedure it can be accepted before final release?

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• • Peter Dietz 11/07 -- Correct, language packs can be updated between releases, it is best to get it finished before the final release in December though.
    

Unsure of Status

Developers of these features need to send a message let others know the progress of these features.

• SWORD Client for DSpace? (Robin Taylor – may be ready, Richard Jones & Stuart Lewis are interested in helping) – would allow DSpace to push/submit content to other SWORD enabled repositories
  • For closed & open access repositories – add a button to transfer content from a closed to an open repository.

• Wiki Markup

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• [DSPACE:CGIProposal

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• ] (Richard Rodgers/MIT -- Interface & XML serialization implementation should be ready), based on the 

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• \[

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• Item type based submission patch

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• \|http://jira.dspace.org/jira/browse/DS-464\]

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•  picked up by Robin Taylor (initially a GSoC project) -- would allow for type-based submission processes (e.g. Theses/Dissertations could have different submission steps than articles/papers).

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• Context

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• Guided

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• Ingest

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• – define

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• an

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• interface,

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• where

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• any

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• submission

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• code

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• "attributes"

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• again

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• on.

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• input-forms.xml)

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• JPA2?

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• • seems

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• • info)

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• • – Mark

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• • Diggory.

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• Rewrite of Creative Commons licensing (MIT - ready to go) – would improve upon the features of the current CC licensing submission step
  • Currently only against XMLUI from MIT
  • Legacy problem – do we update old license to new or not? Currently MIT runs 'split version' with old licenses looking like old, and new look like new.

*\*\[*{*}CurationTaskProposal{*}*\|CurationTaskProposal\]* (Richard Rodgers/MIT -- some will be ready) -- would allow for a more standard way to integrate curation tools (e.g. virus scanning, format identification, etc) into DSpace Lightweight framework to attach curation tasks -- 3-4 tasks for 1.7. These could be kicked off by commandline (in batch) or Admin UI (potentially) 1. Automated replication
2. Streamlined Checksum Checker
3. Virus Checker - ClamAV (Tcp socket communication)
4. ??? Better content format identification (may not be ready for 1.7)
Could relate to Scheduler service (Spring based) in Modules area. Allows you to register & schedule events. -- Mark Diggory

Possibly one or more of the \[Google Summer of Code\|Google Summer of Code\] 2010 projects (if they are ready/stable enough for release)
 \- REST API?  -\- Based on previous discussion on developers list / irc channel it will be most probably released asynchronously. It is in the process but RC 1 deadline is too short for all parts to be implemented. Bojan Suzic Oct. 10/27 \-\-

SWORD Client for DSpace? (Robin Taylor – may be ready, Richard Jones & Stuart Lewis are interested in helping) – would allow DSpace to push/submit content to other SWORD enabled repositories

• For closed & open access repositories – add a button to transfer content from a closed to an open repository.

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