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.
Candidate Features for DSpace
Feature Categories
Features have been grouped into rough "categories" as follows:
- Structure: Features that relate to the architecture/structure of content within DSpace
- Administrative: Features which are mostly administrative functions/activities
- End User: Features relating to how end users interact with the system (deposit, download, search)
- Integrations: Features which are either used by external systems (or programs) or interact themselves with an external system
- Stats/Metrics: Features relating to metrics or statistics around content and its usage
Candidate Feature | Category | Exists? (in some form) | Core | Non-core | Survey Average Score* (10 = high, 1 = low) | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Create / manage files and metadata (as an Item) | Structure | x | 10.00 | Create / manage files and metadata (as an Item) | ||
Community and Collection hierarchy (or generic containers) | Structure | 7.37 | Community and Collection hierarchy (or generic containers) | |||
Create new versions of existing Items | Structure | 5.92 | Create new versions of existing Items | |||
Support for derivative objects (e.g. thumbnails, coversheets) | Structure | 6.52 | Support for derivative objects | |||
Metadata for all levels of object hierarchy (e.g. for Communities and Collections) | Structure | 6.99 | Metadata for all levels of object hierarchy | |||
Relationships between objects (e.g. Author items as Authors of an Item rather than textual metadata) | Structure | 8.17 | Relationships between objects | |||
Support for hierarchical metadata formats (e.g. METS / MODS) | Structure | 7.10 | Support for hierarchical metadata formats (e.g. METS / MODS) | |||
Item approval workflows | Administrative | 7.88 | Approval workflows | |||
Item embargo facility | End User / Administrative | 8.64 | Embargo functionality (admin) | |||
Support for flexible licensing, including Creative Commons | End User | 8.44 | ||||
CRIS functionality (Current Research Information System: researcher pages and automated publication feeds from external data providers) | End User | (add-on available) | 5.51 | |||
Search and browse for Items | End User | 9.41 | ||||
Easy and intuitive deposit mechanism for users | End User | 8.86 | ||||
Batch deposit (multiple item deposit via the user interface) | End User | 8.59 | ||||
Batch download (multiple item download as a single file) | End User | 6.91 | ||||
Authentication with common single-sign-on systems (e.g. LDAP, Shibboleth) | Integrations | 8.52 | ||||
Most configuration takes place via the administrative user interface | Administrative | 7.61 | Config via Admin UI - Edits to dspace.cfg Admin UI - Change community/collection parent/child relationship | |||
Template-driven user interface for easy branding | Administrative | 7.53 | Admin UI - Theme templates | |||
User interface and theme management takes place via user interface | Administrative | 6.47 | ||||
Search Engine crawler-friendly user interface | Integrations | 8.91 | ||||
Specialised content delivery mechanisms (media players, page turners, document viewers) | End User | 6.83 | ||||
Content streaming (video player) | End User | 6.92 | ||||
Basic preservation (fixity checks) | Administrative | 8.33 | ||||
Format identification and reporting | Administrative | 7.00 | ||||
Advanced preservation services (e.g. format migration) | Administrative | 6.61 | Advanced Preservation - Format Migration | |||
Persistent identifiers: handles | Integrations | 8.32 | ||||
Additional external persistent identifiers: DOIs, DataCite | Integrations | 7.56 | ||||
Other external identifiers: ORCID | Integrations | 7.22 | ||||
Basic statistics (item access counts, file downloads) | Stats/Metrics | 9.03 | ||||
Advanced statistics (search terms, geographical locations) | Stats/Metrics | 8.13 | ||||
Altmetrics | Stats/Metrics | 7.30 | ||||
Open Access status tracking and compliance checking | Stats/Metrics / Integrations | 7.27 | ||||
Standard repository machine interfaces (e.g. OAI-PMH, SWORDv2, ResourceSync) | Integrations | 8.11 | ||||
REST API for building external applications | Integrations | 7.56 |
Formula for "Survey Average Score"
The "Survey Average Score" represents average score of all respondents for a single feature from the Vision Survey
- Very Important = 10 points
- Moderately important = 5 points
- Not important = 0 points
So, for example, "Community and Collection Hierarchy" had 50 respondents rank it "Very important" (10 points each), 37 rank it "Moderately important" (5 points each), and 6 rank it "Not important" (0 points).
This is an average score of ((10 x 50) + (5 x 37)) / (50 + 37 + 6) = 7.37 average.
A spreadsheet was used to calculate all average scores. See the attached DSpace_Vision_Survey_Feature_Rankings.xls
Non-Functional Goals for DSpace
Non-functional Goal | Use Cases / Details |
---|---|
Easy to install / deploy |
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Easy to upgrade |
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Scalability / Performance | (needs better definition) |
Attractive to new developers |
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Attractive to new Repository/Content Managers |
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Avoid centrally maintaining duplicative codebases/functions |
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