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.
Next Major Release: DSpace 7.0
DSpace 7.0 is under current development. The latest status of that work can be found at DSpace Release 7.0 Status. If you wish to help with development, consider joining the DSpace 7 Working Group.
Specific Release Information
If you are looking for information regarding specific releases of DSpace, especially past releases, also see our Releases page.
The latest stable release is DSpace 6.x. For more information, see the DSpace 6 Release Notes
Background
This Technical RoadMap is based on the DSpace 2015-18 Strategic Plan - Technology and the Use Case Analysis produced by the DSpace RoadMap Working Group in April/May of 2015. The DSpace RoadMap Working Group consists of the members of DCAT, Committers and Steering Group: Tim Donohue (Lead, DuraSpace), Stuart Lewis (Edinburgh), Bram Luyten (@mire), Jonathan Markow (DuraSpace), Michele Mennielli (CINECA), Richard Rodgers (MIT), Ryan Steans (Texas Digital Library), Maureen Walsh (Ohio State).
While it is a living document, it was initially presented at both OR15 (week of June 8), and OAI9 (week of June 15).
- A video screencast of this 2015 talk is available at: http://youtu.be/qlPAeqCptxw
- Slides are also available at: http://www.slideshare.net/tdonohue/dspace-technology-roadmap-201516
Since 2015, ongoing Strategic Planning activities have taken place in DSpace Steering & Leadership Group Meetings.
How to get involved
- If you'd like to help us achieve specific goals in this RoadMap, please get in touch via our Mailing Lists or Slack.
- DSpace is primarily supported by community code contributions. If you'd like to contribute code, please see our Code Contribution Guidelines.
- If you are interested in discussing a specific topic, we do have DSpace Interest Groups and DSpace Working Groups available.
- Other general ways of contributing to DSpace (both technical and non-technical) can be found at How to Contribute to DSpace
The DSpace 7.0 release is under development and the latest status can be found at DSpace Release 7.0 Status. The below candidate features are ordered in terms of importance to the 7.0 release. As such, the goal is to achieve each feature in the order that they appear (and not all features are guaranteed to be completed in time for 7.0). However, if you or your institution would like to drive or lead the development of a specific feature, you are welcome to volunteer your time towards any of the candidate features listed, no matter where that feature ranks in the listing. For larger features/contributions, we recommend first forming a Working Group (anyone can chair or form a Working Group) to allow other institutions to contribute to your initiative. Single User Interface. DSpace currently maintains two user interfaces in parallel (JSPUI and XMLUI). To replace these two user interfaces, we are building a new, single, out-of-the-box user interface on Angular.io. For reference: Standards-based REST API DSpace's current REST API, while functional, is limited in features and does not follow current best practices for RESTful APIs. To support the new, single user interface (on Angular.io), we are building / designing a new REST API that follows modern best practices such as: HATEOAS (Hypertext As The Engine Of Application State), ALPS (Application Level Profile Semantics), and using the HAL (Hypertext Application Language) response format. The new REST API is being built using Spring technologies (Boot, MVC, and HATEOAS). Goal 3: Can be "extended" and Goal 4: Integration with external services New REST Contract (work in progress): Single Approval Workflow system. DSpace currently has two approval workflow systems: We should consolidate on a single Approval Workflow system, likely the Configurable Workflow, with sane defaults. See this ticket for more details: Single built-in Statistical Engine (SOLR Statistics) Configurations in Admin User Interface Non-functional: Module Framework and Registry DSpace needs a clear definition of what constitutes a "DSpace module", so that third-parties can create, maintain and distribute their own "modules" as add-ons to DSpace, and distribute them via a public "registry". Lower the effort to deposit content (via integrations) The DSpace deposit process should integrate more closely with external data sources, in order to automatically populate (or suggest) data on deposit. We should also investigate whether some integrations may allow opportunities for Administrator's to autopopulate DSpace from trusted, external content sources. Goal 1: Fundamentals of IR Goal 4: Integration with external services As "priority 2" features, these features are not guaranteed for the next DSpace release, but are still seen as a priority in an upcoming release. Nonetheless, we'd encourage community members to volunteer to help achieve any of these features. If there is community interest in moving one or more of these features forward, that feature may be moved up to "priority 1" for the next release. These features are ordered in terms of importance, but are all considered to be lower importance than the "priority 1" features listed above. DSpace should support defining relationships between objects (especially at the Item and Bitstream level). Some object relationships may be definable via metadata, but should be respected by the DSpace UI. But, in other situations, it may also necessitate the creation of new types of Objects (e.g. Author objects as Authors of an Item rather than simply textual metadata) Simplify Community and Collection Hierarchy DSpace's required hierarchy of Communities and Collections should be replaced with a more flexible module of supporting Collections & Sub-Collections. Enhance Basic Statistical Reporting Goal 1: Fundamentals of IRCandidate Features for DSpace 7.0 - Priority 1
Priority 1 Features Design / Notes Related Technical Strategic Goal(s) Core? Complexity Use Cases Work in Progress?
(Work has begun in DSpace 7 Working Group)Goal 2: Lean and flexible x High
(Work has begun in DSpace 7 Working Group)x High
(Work has begun in DSpace 7 Working Group)Goal 1: Fundamentals of IR x Medium
Elasticsearch Usage Statistics were deprecated in 6.0 and will be removed in 7.0DSpace currently has three built-in statistical engines, one based on Apache Solr (default), another based on Elasticsearch (optional), and a third Legacy statistics (which parses logs). DSpace should only provide one out-of-the-box, built-in statistical engine (Solr Statistics), and all others should be removed (and as necessary, their features merged into one). Goal 2: Lean and flexible x Medium DSpace should support the modification of most configurations/settings from the Administrative User Interface, instead of requiring such configurations be tweaked from command line. Goal 5: Low cost, "just works" x High Goal 3: Can be "extended" x High x Medium Short Term - Priority 2
Priority 2 Features Design / Notes Related Technical Strategic Goal(s) Core? Complexity Use Cases Work in Progress DSpace should support hierarchical metadata formats (e.g. MODS) Goal 1: Fundamentals of IR x High Goal 1: Fundamentals of IR x High Goal 2: Lean and flexible x High DSpace's existing Statistical Reporting user interfaces are rudimentary and do not provide enough useful views/reports/exports of the underlying captured data. These should be enhanced based on modern use cases/needs. Goal 1: Fundamentals of IR x Medium DSpace's existing basic preservation functions (format identification, checksum verification, etc) could use enhancement based on modern tools and services. Goal 1: Fundamentals of IR x Medium DSpace's deposit interface could use enhancement for a better overall user experience with regards to usability and accessibility. x Medium
Longer Term Features / Priorities
While these features are unscheduled at this time, we still encourage volunteers to begin to analyze or tackle them. If there is interest in moving one or more of these features forward in the nearterm, we can immediately schedule it for an upcoming release. These features are unordered, but are all considered priorities for DSpace moving forward.
Features | Design / Notes | Related Technical Strategic Goal(s) | Core? | Complexity | Use Cases | Work in Progress |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Non-functional: Easier Installation | While DSpace's installation process continues to improve, it is still highly manual in nature. We should investigate ways to provide an "easy installer" which could potentially even auto-install and configure prerequisites such as Tomcat, Postgres, etc.
| Goal 5: Low cost, "just works" | x |
| ||
Non-functional: Easier Upgrade Process | While DSpace's upgrade process continues to improve, it is still complex with regards to local customizations or theme changes. We should investigate of simplifying the upgrade process, by alleviate the manual process of merging in local changes/tweaks where possible.
| Goal 5: Low cost, "just works" | x |
| ||
Advanced Usage Statistics | DSpace currently only provides basic statististical reporting functionality. We should investigate ways to provide enhanced, highly detailed reports for users who need them. Likely, this will be implemented as an optional module available via a module registry.
| Goal 3: Can be "extended" | High |
| ||
Theme management in Admin UI | While DSpace currently supports some basic theming in the XMLUI interface, management of such themes is performed via command-line configurations and tweaks. We should find a way to make Themes selectable and tweakable via the Admin UI, like other modern web facing systems.
| Goal 5: Low cost, "just works" | x | High | ||
Enhance Versioning | DSpace provides an optional, basic Item versioning capability. However, this versioning capability is limited in nature, and not yet fully integrated into all DSpace tools and interfaces. We should find a way to enhance item versioning, and make it more embedded into the system (and API) overall.
| x | ||||
Replace Bundle object with Metadata (or similar) | In DSpace, a "Bundle" object is just a simple grouping of Files (Bitstreams) (e.g. "THUMBNAIL", "TEXT"). Rather than being its own object, a "bundle" could be more easily replaced with metadata on individual Bitstreams (e.g. dc.type="thumbnail"), or even relationships between Bitstreams (i.e. derivative objects).
| Goal 2: Lean and flexible | x | Medium | ||
Advanced Preservation | DSpace currently only provides basic preservation tools (format identification, checksum verification, etc) out-of-the-box. We should investigate providing enhanced preservation options (or integrations) for users who need it. Likely, this will be implemented as an optional module available via a module registry.
| Goal 3: Can be "extended" | High | |||
Enhance Search / Browse System | While DSpace's search/browse system continues to improve, there are still ways we can improve the user experience of finding items within DSpace.
| Goal 1: Fundamentals of IR | x | |||
Enhance Access Control | DSpace's access control system (which manages authentication and authorization) is a custom solution that is now nearly as old as the software platform itself. While it functions well enough as-is, replacing it with a comparable third-party, open source AuthN/AuthZ system would simplify our codebase and ongoing maintenance.
| Goal 1: Fundamentals of IR | x | |||
Enhance Approval Workflow capabilities | While directly related to the "Single Approval Workflow system" feature (above), DSpace's workflow system(s) do not yet meet all community use cases for approval workflows. This feature is a placeholder for enhancing the Approval Workflow system based on the Workflow Use Cases (see list in the "Use Cases" column). However, it is likely somewhat dependent on standardizing on a single Workflow system.
| Goal 1: Fundamentals of IR | x |
Integrations
While integrations are very important to DSpace, these integrations projects are "unscheduled" as of yet. Some of these integrations are "ongoing activities" (e.g. search engine optimization), while others require further definition, or their design may be affected by one or more of the candidate features listed above. Nonetheless, if there is interest in moving one or more of these features forward in the nearterm, we can immediately schedule it for an upcoming release. These integrations are unordered, but are all considered priorities for DSpace moving forward.
Integration | Design / Notes | Related Technical Strategic Goal(s) | Core? | Complexity | Use Cases | Work in Progress |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Goal 4: Integration with external services | x | Medium | |||
Goal 4: Integration with external services | ||||||
Goal 4: Integration with external services | x | |||||
Personal Identifiers (ORCID) (Enhanced) |
| Goal 4: Integration with external services | x | |||
| Goal 5: Low cost, "just works" | |||||
| Goal 5: Low cost, "just works" | |||||
| Goal 5: Low cost, "just works" | |||||
| Goal 4: Integration with external services | x |