DCAT Meeting May 2026

What is DCAT?

The DSpace Community Advisory Team (DCAT) represents the interests of repository managers and administrators across the globe and, indirectly, DSpace end users. DCAT is a permanent DSpace Working Group sponsored by the DSpace Steering Group that advises DSpace Program governance groups. We welcome feedback and participation from anyone in the community.

Date & Time

• Tuesday, May 12, 2026, 12:00 Eastern Time
• See the world clock to determine the meeting time for your location.
• Meeting length: one hour

Join information:

We will be using the DCAT Chair's Zoom Room for our meeting.

NOTE: there is a new passcode to enter the meeting: dspace2025

Join from PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android: https://umn.zoom.us/j/95455262817?pwd=Z3o5BexR7gsspIzDiP7beexkthKR4i.1 (Meeting ID: 954 5526 2817) Passcode: dspace2025

Additional ways to join: DCAT Chair Zoom Room

Agenda and Notes:

• Housekeeping
  • Confluence Theme update - to change, go to your profile icon and find "Theme" in the menu
  • Sign up for the DCAT Google Group: https://groups.google.com/g/DSpaceCommunityAdvisoryTeam
  • Do you have a DSpace wiki account? Email wikihelp@lyrasis.org for an account
  • DSpace Community Events Calendar: https://dspace.org/events/
  • DSpace Slack channel: https://dspace-org.slack.com (see the new channel for the #testathon)!

• Upcoming Events
  • Looking for presenters for the DSpace Deep Dive series
  • Call for Proposals open for DSpace North American User Group (due by May 31, 2026)
    • Submit proposals: https://forms.gle/CqJtmJLQ9RCYEARS7
    • When/Where: September 28–30, 2026, Lamont Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

• Updates
  • Project to review and clean out old GitHub tickets continues monthly
    • Issue spreadsheet and guidance for how to review older tickets
  • 10.0 Testathon Report
    • 26 unique testers and many other Anonymous contributors
      • Thank you! 
    • 183 successful tests (OK)
    • Comments/Discussion?
      • Appreciation for:
        • The column in the spreadsheet detailing what the test was supposed to do
        • Column for secondary testing
        • Longer testing period helped with scheduling time for testing
      • Coworking sessions
        • Helped having two different sessions to accommodate participants from different timezones
  • Idea for format/platform for Test Plan next year (2027)
    • Test plan on GitHub instead of spreadsheet?
      • Holger: Excel file works, but limitations wrt tracking all the testers reviewing tests; readability decreases as number of testers increases
        • Use of Projects feature in Github, create Testathon as Project, can assign tests, can check status and attach labels
        • Automatic reorganization of list when tests tagged as completed successfully
        • Can create an entire page with images for each issue
        • Easier to track who did what
        • Could do training session for individuals unfamiliar with Github
      • Comments:
        • Good way to introduce community to version control systems
        • User stories are great for testing
        • Some concerns of testers' lack of familiarity with tool, needing to sign up for a new platform in some cases → fix with coworking sessions and training
    • Access to GitHub?

• Scholaris Expert Groups Overview
  • About the Scholaris Expert Groups
  • Expert Group guidance published on TSpace (University of Toronto IR)
  • Notes:
    • Any way to incorporate Scholaris documentation into the broader DSpace documentation? (e.g., preservation spreadsheet)
    • Please add your questions in the comments on this meeting page or email info@scholaris.ca.  

• 
  

• Next Meeting: June 9, 2026 - Post meeting note, This date is during the Open Repositories Conference and this meeting will be moved to the next week, June 16, 2026

Notes:

• About the Scholaris Expert Groups
• Expert Group guidance published on TSpace (University of Toronto IR)
• -MDEG Multilingual Metadata Recommendations English | French

Call Attendees

Kent Gerber University of Minnesota

Colin Lukens Harvard Library

Holger Lenz, DSpace Program, Lyrasis 

Marcella Huggard Lyrasis

Carolyn Sullivan, Université d'Ottawa

Allison Fischbach Johns Hopkins

Sarah Barsness , University of Minnesota 

Karl Wirth, Creighton University

Genny Jon , York University, Toronto

Julia Gilmore Scholars Portal

Nicholas Woodward 

Lia Eggleston DSpace Program, Lyrasis 

Sean McLaughlin, Theses Canada

Jordan Piščanc (4Science) 

Priscilla Carmini, University of Waterloo

Peter Sutton-Long University of Cambridge

Regrets