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.

Definitions:

Roadmap = This is what we want to see happen in 5 years, and this is how we do it.

Vision Area = Five Areas we want DSpace to improve: Roadmap / Vision: for goals and direction of DSpace

High Level Target = High Level Targets for each Vision Area build out functional description of Vision Area and How DSpace fits into it. Aid in focusing the roles that DSpace is applied to.

Functional Definition = Further describe High Level Target

Technologies of Interest = Define core areas of important services/tools/IT systems technologies that are relevant. Define list of for DSpace to operate with.

Use Cases = A specific system or end-user need that can be identified, need to be connected with those 5 main areas that we want to improve on in the future. When use cases show up in each of these areas they should be of higher priority.

Vision Areas:

 Vision Area 1:

DSpace will focus on the fundamentals of the modern Institutional Repository Service use case.  DSpace will store and manage the common file and metadata types required for both the scholarly and cultural objects that compose the modern flexible Institutional Repository.

  1. High Level Target: Modern IR Service
    • Functional Description: System that may be leveraged to manage, describe and publish digital content.  Modern IR Services apply to a number of “fields of application”: Institutional Repository (Individual Institution or Consortium), Data Archive, Research Information Systems (CRIS), Open Access Publisher (Journal and/or other publications), Museum Archive, Central Search Aggregator (SHARE / OpenAIR)
    • Use Cases:
    • Technologies of Interest:

Vision Area 2:

DSpace will be lean with agility and flexibility as primary goals. As a ‘lean’ application, DSpace will strive to be cost effective,  efficient, and scalable to operate, without requiring significant initial investment. It will be easy to configure, adapt, and upgrade.

 

  1. High Level Target: Flexibility
    • Functional Definition: 

    • Use Cases:

    • Technologies of Interest:

  2. High Level Target: Efficiency / Scalability
    • Functional Definition: 

    • Use Cases:

    • Technologies of Interest:

  3. High Level Target: Easy to Configure, Adapt, Upgrade
    • Functional Definition: 
    • Use Cases:
    • Technologies of Interest:

Vision Area 3: 

DSpace will include a core set of functionality that can be easily extended. Through the provision of standardized integration points (‘hooks’) it will be possible to easily extend DSpace to operate with complimentary services, tools, or existing campus IT systems.

  1. High Level Target: Through the provision of standardized integration points (‘hooks’) it will be possible to easily extend DSpace
    • Functional Definition: There should be a core set of features identified in DSpace that are required functions of DSpace, Core set of Features that support all environments, they must be extensible to create “addons” to support DSpace functioning in each specific environment identified in Vision Area 1 "Fields of Application".
    • Use Cases:
      1. Integrations - Support External Authentication Systems
        • Allow Developers to easily extend DSpace with additional functionality in a manner that is consistent and predictable, with well defined Interfaces
        • Allow review and Remediation of requests for Change to existing "standard" API  by qualified experts on team.
        • Allow for backwards compatibility in core API to assure that previous versions of addons may continue to work in newer versions of DSpace.
    • Technologies of Interest:
        • JAVA API, REST, LDAP/AD, SAML, Databases,

  2. High Level Target: DSpace should be able to easily interoperate with complimentary services, tools, or existing campus IT systems.
    • Functional Definition: The interoperation of DSpace with complementary Services happens in various functional areas throughout the application. In many cases, the presence of an API or Service Contract facilitates critical parts of application (Core) operating consistently while communicating with one or more external services. API are necessary to support consistent application behavior in the presence of varied and diverse service tiers
    • Use Cases:
      1. Integrations - Support External Authentication Systems 
        1. Allow multiple sources of authentication
        2. Allow mapping between authenticated users and roles in DSpace.
        3. Allow management/creation of new user accounts.
    • Technologies of Interest:
        1. Authentication/Authorization
          • LDAP, AD, Shibboleth, CAS, OpenID, ...

Vision Area 4:

DSpace will be designed to be configurable to integrate with the changing digital scholarship and cultural ecosystems. The digital landscape continues to evolve quickly, and it is important that the institutional repository is able to adapt and integrate with external services as they develop. Examples include author identification and disambiguation, bibliometrics, and usage statistics.

  1.  High Level Target:
    • Functional Definition: 

    • Use Cases:

    • Technologies of Interest:

Vision Area 5:

 DSpace will support low-cost hosted solutions and deployments. The DSpace application will be architected in such a way as to allow easy installation for either individual repositories, or for the hosting of multiple repositories on one system.

  1. High Level Target:
    • Functional Definition: 

    • Use Cases:

    • Technologies of Interest:

  • No labels