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While this document is still being enhanced, it is considered in a "reviewable" state. Feedback is welcome via comments on this wiki page or via the Twitter hashtag #dspaceplan. |
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This Roadmap was presented during the DSpace Interest Groups sessions at both OR15 (week of June 8), and OAI9 (week of June 15).
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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) |
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Candidate Features for DSpace 6.0
Because of tight timelines for 6.0, the 6.0 release will be a "bring us what you have" release (similar to 3.0, 4.0 and 5.0 in the last three years). Therefore, most of the features in 6.0 will be determined from community contributions which align well with the overarching Strategic Plan and Roadmap (see below).
Therefore, this list is incomplete, and does not represent a list of ALL features to be added into DSpace 6.0 in late 2015. It just notes a few smaller features / goals from the 2015-18 Strategic Plan for Technology which will be targeted towards the 6.0 release.
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- Lucene and old DB browse system are already deprecated. Just need removal
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- Move Elasticsearch Usage Statistics to external "module"? Possibly related to "Module Framework" project however (so it may or may not need to wait for 7.0)
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If you are looking for information regarding specific releases of DSpace, especially past releases, also see our Releases page. |
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DSpace 7.6.x Maintenance
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The history of 7.x releases is captured on our DSpace Release 7.0 Status page. |
With the release of DSpace 7.6 in June 2023, the 7.x platform has moved into maintenance mode. This means that all future 7.x releases will only include bug or security fixes. (Improvements to existing translations or user interface accessibility are also accepted as that are considered bugs.)
- Release Numbering: Because 7.x releases all included new features (as described in DSpace Release 7.0 Status), Steering and Developers have agreed that future 7.x releases should all use the "7.6.x" number scheme (e.g. 7.6.1, 7.6.2, etc). This clarifies that 7.6 was the final release which will include new features. Starting with 8.0, we will revert to our usual numbering scheme where 8.0 will accept new features, but 8.1, 8.2, and 8.3 will only include bug fixes.
- Support plan: DSpace 7.6.x will be under support until it is no longer one of the most recent three (3) major releases per our DSpace Software Support Policy. As DSpace is moving back to a release schedule of one major release per year, this means that 7.6.x will be supported until DSpace 10.0 is released (tentatively scheduled for 2026).
- Release Schedule: DSpace 7.6.x bug-fix releases will occur whenever major issues require immediate resolution or a larger number of smaller issues are ready for immediate release. They have no fixed timeline, but will be announced on mailing lists when available.
- Development Activities: DSpace 7.6.x development activities occur on our DSpace 7.6.x Maintenance Project Board.
- Development discussions related to DSpace 7.6.x occur in our weekly Developer Meetings
DSpace 8.0 Development
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Additional information on 8.0 can be found at DSpace Release 8.0 Status |
DSpace Steering Group finalized the roadmap / plans for 8.0 in their meeting on June 28, 2023 (immediately after the 7.6 release). This plan was presented to the Leadership Group on August 9, 2023 (notes are public).
8.0 Release Goals
These are the main priorities for the 8.0 release as decided by the DSpace Steering Group. The overarching goal is to keep the 8.0 release smaller in size (in terms of new features), and find ways to help the community more easily upgrade to 7.x or 8.x.
- Attempt to include all (in progress) major features which missed the 7.x series of releases. Specifically, this includes these four features:
- COAR Notify support (4Science & Harvard): Implementation of the COAR Notify protocol in DSpace 8
- Correction service to enhance data quality via OpenAIRE Graph (4Science): https://4science.github.io/oaire-eld/ and https://github.com/DSpace/DSpace/pull/8184
- Porting "REST-Based Quality Control Reports" from old REST API to new one. (U of Laval, Canada): https://github.com/DSpace/DSpace/issues/7641
- Duplicate Detection in Submission ported from DSpace-CRIS (The Library Code): https://github.com/DSpace/dspace-angular/pull/1732 and https://github.com/DSpace/DSpace/pull/8415
- Accept new features which empower users in the Admin User Interface. In other words, any new features which make things easier for administrators would be accepted. However, at this time, this work is unfunded and would need to be provided by volunteers.
- Accept community contributions of any 6.x features which missed the 7.x series of releases. At this time, this work is unfunded and would need to be provided by volunteers
- Improve documentation, training to allow for greater community contributions. This also may include easing the setup/installation/customization or maintenance of DSpace.
8.0 Release Schedule
8.0 will be released in April 2024. 8.1, 8.2, 8.3 will be bug-fix only releases (with release dates to be determined later)
DSpace Steering has set a goal of having all future DSpace major releases in April of each year. For example, 9.0 would be in April 2025, 10.0 in April 2026, etc.
8.0 Development Activities
DSpace 8.0 development activities occur on our DSpace 8.0 Project Board.
Development discussions related to DSpace 8.0 occur in our weekly Developer Meetings
Future Research / Planning
In parallel to the 8.0 release, the Developer team (via Developer Meetings) will work on some early proof of concepts which may be included in 9.0 or later. Some of these early proof-of-concepts currently include work to modularize DSpace (e.g. DSpace 8 Angular : library-based architecture proposal) and improve the storage layer (e.g. via OCFL or similar). To take part in these discussions, please join future Developer Meetings.
How to help
DSpace is a global collaboration and most of our activities are entirely volunteer based (including code development).
- To help with development activities (claiming/prioritizing tickets, testing new fixes, etc) please consider joining future Developer Meetings, or getting in touch via Slack or GitHub. We welcome anyone and everyone to contribute. Contributions can be in writing code, reviewing others code, or even simply testing someone else's code works properly.
- To help with documentation (e.g. https://wiki.lyrasis.org/display/DSDOC7x), please create a Wiki account (email wikihelp@lyrasis.org) and get in touch with Tim Donohue (via Slack or email) to ask for edit access to the documentation.
- To help brainstorm/suggest new features, consider joining the DSpace Community Advisory Team meetings or mailing lists. This is our interest group for repository managers and they help suggest future features to DSpace Steering and developers.
- To help others (and perhaps yourself), consider joining our Mailing Lists and Slack. These are the primary ways that people ask questions and support one another in using DSpace
- Additional Support options are documented on our Support page.
Candidate Features for DSpace 7.0 - Priority 1
The DSpace 7.0 release is tentatively scheduled for late 2016 or early 2017. 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. 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.
| Priority 1 Features | Design / Notes | Related Technical Strategic Goal(s) | Core? | Complexity | Use Cases | Volunteers | |||||||||||||||||
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| Single User Interface | DSpace currently maintains two user interfaces in parallel (JSPUI and XMLUI). We want to "converge" on a single, out-of-the-box user interface for DSpace. | Goal 2: Lean and flexible | x | High | For reference: | Cineca | |||||||||||||||||
| Configurations in Admin User Interface | 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 |
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| 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". | Goal 3: Can be "extended" | x | High | Cineca (interested) | ||||||||||||||||||
| Simplify Community & Collection Hierarchy | DSpace's required hierarchy of Communities and Collections should be replaced with a more flexible module of supporting Collections & Sub-Collections. | Goal 2: Lean and flexible | x | High | |||||||||||||||||||
| Lower the effort to deposit content into DSpace (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 | x | Medium |
| Cineca (interested) |
Candidate Features for DSpace 7.0 - Priority 2
The DSpace 7.0 release is tentatively scheduled for late 2016 or early 2017. As "priority 2" features, these features are not guaranteed for the DSpace 7.0 release, but 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 7.0 release. These features are ordered in terms of importance, but are all considered to be lower importance than the "priority 1" features listed above.
| Priority 2 Features | Design / Notes | Related Technical Strategic Goal(s) | Core? | Complexity | Use Cases | Volunteers | |||||||||||||||||
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| Hierarchical Metadata Support | DSpace should support hierarchical metadata formats (e.g. MODS) | Goal 1: Fundamentals of IR | x | High | Cineca | ||||||||||||||||||
| Relationships between Objects | 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)
| Goal 1: Fundamentals of IR | x | High | Cineca | ||||||||||||||||||
| Enhance Basic Statistical Reporting | 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 |
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| Enhance Basic Preservation | 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 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Easy and Intuitive Deposit Interface | DSpace's deposit interface could use enhancement for a better overall user experience with regards to usability and accessibility.
| Goal 1: Fundamentals of IR | x | Medium |
| Cineca (interested) |
Post-7.0 Features
While these features are scheduled as "post-7.0" 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 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 | Volunteers | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 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 |
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| 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 |
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| 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 |
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| 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 |
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| 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.
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| 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 |
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| 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 |
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| 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 | 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 |
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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.
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Integration with external authentication / authorisation system
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- Also related to Integrations - Authentication through Multiple Mechanisms
- Already exists to some extent (LDAP, Shibb, etc). But, would be nice to move to a third-party, standardized AutN/AuthZ solution.
Jira server DuraSpace JIRA serverId c815ca92-fd23-34c2-8fe3-956808caf8c5 key DS-1566
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- Related to Integrations - Use of multiple sorts of Direct Object Identifiers
- Also related Integrations - Handle System Identifiers
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- Related to Integrations - Support ORCID in Authority Cache
- Also related Integrations - Support for ORCID in the CSV Batch edit
- ORCIDs exist in DSpace 5.x, but these use cases suggest enhancements to that system
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- Provide an ability to stream video in-browser (likely using third-party integrations or tools)
- Related to End User - Visitor can play media hosted on an external streaming media server
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Integrations - integrating with third party document streaming services
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- Provide an ability to stream/view (textual) documents (e.g. PDF) in-browser
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- Provide an ability to stream/view/zoom/pan images in-browser
- Related to End User - Image file display (pan, zoom, size options)
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- Search Engine Optimization
- While this exists in DSpace, SEO is an ongoing activity and can always be improved upon
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