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.
This page presents an attempt to document which platforms DSpace is often compared with and what particular strengths and weaknesses are.
Institutional Repository Platform
DSpace is most known as a turnkey platform for building institutional repositories.
Examples of DSpace used as an Institutional Repository include:
In the open source realm DSpace is often compared with:
In the commercial realm DSpace is often compared with:
Features that make DSpace strong in this area:
- Dublin Core metadata support
- Customizable workflows, submission forms that can be defined on a per collection basis
- OAI-PMH
- Embargo, licensing and other access control features
- Very good Google Scholar indexing results
External articles about DSpace in this area:
- ...
Digital Collection Management
Without adhering to a particular definition, usage of DSpace as a digital collection management system is generally less document centric and can embody collections of all kinds of digital assets. In this use case, rich user interfaces and support to render particular types of content directly in the browser are important.
Examples of DSpace used as a Digital Collection Management System include:
In the open source realm DSpace is often compared with:
In the commercial realm DSpace is often compared with:
Current Research Information System (CRIS)
The overlap between DSpace and the realm of CRIS systems comes from the fact that publications, usually stored in DSpace, are important objects in a CRIS system. The overall concept of a CRIS system is broader and encompasses rich objects for staff, projects, grants etc. Nevertheless, several institutions have successfully implemented DSpace as a CRIS component:
In the open source realm DSpace is often compared with:
In the commercial realm DSpace is often compared with:
Data Repository
In recent years, DSpace is increasingly being used to store research data.
Examples of DSpace as a data repository:
Features that make DSpace strong in this area:
- Persistent URLs and unique identifiers
- Item and bitstream versioning
External articles about DSpace in this area:
Learning Object Repository (LOR)
Examples of DSpace as a Learning Object Repository:
- JORUM
- Open Educational Resources at the African Virtual University
- Maryland's K12 Learning Objects Repository
External articles about DSpace in this area:
- Seminar "Learning Object Repositories with DSpace"
- Buliding an Open Social Learning Community Around a DSpace Repository on Statistics
Features that make DSpace strong in this area:
- Ingestion and Exporting in different packaging formats (AIP, but potentially IMS, SCORM, ...)
Digital Preservation System
Digital preservation systems intend to safeguard assets for the long term.
Commercial Digital Preservation systems
Features that make DSpace strong in this area:
- Checksum checker
- Bitstream format validator
- Distributed asset storage
- AIP import & export + link with Duracloud
Web Content Management System (WCMS)
Wait? DSpace is not a CMS, right? Because of its user interfaces and pages for collections, communities, in combination with good search and browse functionality, DSpace has been preferred in some usecases compared to more traditional CMS systems. Another reason to include web content management systems here is because some users contemplate building repository functionality and specific metadata support into their WCMS platforms.
Open Source content management systems
- Drupal and the Bibliography Module
- Wordpress
- Joomla
Commercial web content management systems
- MS Sharepoint
Features that make DSpace strong in this area:
- Search features and faceted browsing
- Neatly formatted item pages
Overview
Content Tools
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