Table of Contents:

Milestones

DSpace 7.0 will be the largest release in the history of DSpace. It is the culmination of strategic planning by DSpace Governance in response to community feedback, use cases and needs. (see Strategic Planning)

Achievement	More details
(2015) Governance creates a Strategic Plan for modernizing & refreshing DSpace for the future. A key goal of this plan is a "single, out of the box user interface" to replace the aging XMLUI and JSPUI.	DSpace 2015-18 Strategic Plan
(2015-16) Community competition for different UI prototypes. Nine were reviewed / analyzed for inclusion as the single, future DSpace UI.	DSpace UI Prototype Challenge
(2016) Formal selection of Angular as new UI framework, replacing both the XMLUI and JSPUI. New Angular UI that is modern, responsive, and built using a Bootstrap theme for easy customization.	"Introducing the new DSpace User Interface" talk at OR2016 DSpace 7 UI Project Plain Language Summary
(2017) Adoption of a standards based REST API to maximize exposure of all DSpace features for integration purposes: A completely redesigned REST API that is self-documenting and human browsable (2017- development ongoing)	"On the Road to DSpace 7 : Angular UI + REST" at OR2017 DSpace 7 UI Project Plain Language Summary
(2017-19) Redesigned submissions and workflows featuring a one page submission process with a drag-and-drop interface & a searchable MyDSpace.	Configuration changes in the submission process
(2018-19) Configurable entities, an optional new item type inspired by the DSpace-CRIS project that allows for complex linked relationships between items	DSpace 7 Entities Working Group
(May 2019) Preview release, including Entity demonstrator and associated data set	DSpace 7 Preview Release
(2019-20) Docker installation and deployment procedures	Try out DSpace 7 ("Install via Docker" section)
(March 2010) Beta 1 released	Beta 1 Release Notes
(April 2020) Beta 2 released	Beta 2 Release Notes
(July 2020) Beta 3 released	Beta 3 Release Notes
(Oct 2020) Beta 4 released	Beta 4 Release Notes
Beta 5 is under development. It will be the final Beta before Testathon.	See DSpace 7 Release Goals
Testathon	TBA
7.0 release	TBA

Major benefits of DSpace 7

This release finally brings together two user interfaces and their communities, who had previously been working in parallel. The ambition is to bring together best of both JSPUI and XMLUI worlds, meaning that all features you love and use are re-imagined, and re-implemented on a single new user interface technology, Angular.

The switch to Angular allows more rapid innovation. Angular also has the potential to attract developers with prior expertise, given the popularity and global traction of Angular across industries.

What will be included in DSpace 7?

The efforts contributed to DSpace 7 are the largest endeavour ever undertaken by the DSpace community. The DSpace 7.0 release will concentrate on the following major features:

1. A new User Interface based on Angular (to replace XMLUI and JSPUI). This work is going on at https://github.com/DSpace/dspace-angular
   1. The goal of the new UI is to implement all major features of both XMLUI and JSPUI in a single, modern UI.
   2. While additional UI-related features/improvements may come in this release (especially any that are made easier by Angular), we do not anticipate any significant changes to the DSpace backend (except for the REST API, as noted below).
2. A refactored/enhanced REST API (using modern REST best practices). This work is going on in the "master" branch of https://github.com/DSpace/DSpace
   1. Additionally, a new REST Contract (describing all API interactions) is being written at https://github.com/DSpace/Rest7Contract
3. A new configurable object model (tentatively called "Entities"), which allows for the creation of new "typed" Items, and storing relationships between Items.  This feature will allow for tighter integration with external identifier systems (e.g. ORCID), current research information systems (CRIS), journal publishing systems, etc. This work is going on in the DSpace 7 Entities Working Group.
4. Alignment with core recommendations from the COAR Next Generation Repositories Report (http://ngr.coar-repositories.org/).  Specifically, DSpace 7 will introduce two technologies deemed of highest priority by this report.
   
   1. ResourceSync
      1. options to install alongside an existing DSpace 5.x or 6.x installation will also be made available
   2. Signposting

For much more information on the history behind these decisions, see DSpace 7 UI Project Plain Language Summary

Where is this work happening? How can I track it?

Active work takes part in the DSpace 7 Working Group (this is the development team). This group meets on a weekly basis (see working group wiki page for scheduling information). All meetings are open (anyone can attend) and meeting notes are publicly available off the group's wiki page.

We also use Slack to communicate between meetings. Anyone can request a Slack invite (see link) to listen in or join discussions.  The DSpace 7 development team primarily uses the #angular-ui and #rest-api channels within Slack, to discuss the UI and REST API work respectively.

We are tracking the current status of all active DSpace 7 development in our DSpace 7 Project Boards.

DSpace 7 Angular User interface demo

https://dspace7-demo.atmire.com/

• This site is automatically updated each time a UI code change is merged into https://github.com/DSpace/dspace-angular
• It also points at the REST API demo (see below) and uses data from it.
• Currently, the site is anonymous access only, as authentication / authorization features are still in progress.

DSpace 7 REST API demo

https://dspace7.4science.cloud/server/

• This site is updated after major changes to REST API.

• REST API design/interaction is described in the REST Contract at https://github.com/DSpace/Rest7Contract

Try out DSpace 7 locally

If you'd like to try out the latest work in a local installation of DSpace 7, you may install the latest Angular UI and REST API via Docker (or manually).  See the instructions at Try out DSpace 7.  Please keep in mind, as DSpace 7 is still under active development, it is NOT PRODUCTION READY.

Presentations

Here are the latest DSpace 7 presentations

• September 2019 DSpace North American User Group Meeting
• June 2019 Open Repositories 2019 Hamburg

Older presentations can be found on DSpace 7 Media and Presentations

Code Changes in DSpace 7.0

New Features in 7.0

General Improvements in 7.0

Bug Fixes in 7.0

Organizational Details

Release Coordination

Instead of a single "Release Coordinator", the DSpace 7.0 release will be managed by a "Release Team".

Release Team

• Tim Donohue
• DSpace 7 Working Group 

Please volunteer (by emailing Tim Donohue), if you are interested in joining the team!

Code contributions

Your contributions are welcome now! Code and documentation need not be finished, so long as it is working and we can all see what it is for. Time is set aside for fixing, polishing, and integration. We have some general Code Contribution Guidelines available, but you are also welcome to ask questions on the dspace-devel mailing list.

Release Process

Release Process needs to proceed according to the following Maven release process: Release Procedure