With the support and coordination of the DSpace Foundation, the DSpace Global Outreach Committee (DGOC) conducted the DSpace Community Networking survey in April 2009. The goal of the survey was to collect information about the DSpace user community which would help to facilitate connections for organizations and individuals using the DSpace platform. The survey was designed by DGOC, which is made up of a group of DSpace users from around the world.

The ultimate goal of the survey was to use information to seed a dynamic database where DSpace users can search to find other users who have similar repositories, environments or interests. The work on this database is still on-going, but because the information gathered from the survey may be useful to the community now, the DGOC has posted an Excel file (http://wiki.dspace.org/index.php/Image:DSpace_Community_Networking_Survey_April_2009_POST.xls) with all the info gathered. This file is available for anyone to download and sort. Respondent names and emails have been removed for security precautions - but if members of the community are interested in making a connection with a specific institution, they may contact Jim Ottaviani at hellpop@umich.edu or Valorie Hollister at val@dspace.org for help to facilitate connections where possible.

The DGOC is interested in feedback and recommendations on the next iteration of the database. If you have any feedback or recommendations about the project, please contact Valorie Hollister at val@dspace.org.

SURVEY RESULT HIGHLIGHTS:

Here are a few highlights of the survey results:

• 309 people participated in the survey

• Type of institution: 83% of respondents represent academic institutions, 19% research centers, 10% archive/public library, 10% government *

• Number of items: More than half of the respondents have 2,500 or less items in their repositories, only 15% have 10,000 or more items

• DSpace version: 51% are using 1.5.x, 36% using 1.4.x and 20% are using 1.3 or less, other 3%*

• Upgrade plans: 37% already have upgraded to 1.5.x, 39% plan to upgrade within a year, 19% don't know, %4 don't plan to upgrade

• Modifications to software: 54% minor cosmetic, 29% new features, 29% significant UI customizations, 23% no changes, 8% core code changes*

• UI used: 67% use JSP, 39% use Manakin

• Java version used: 57% Java SE 6, 36% J2SE 5.0, 7% Java SE 7*

''*Many of the questions allowed for multiple answers, therefore some of the numbers and percentages represent multiple answers from the same respondent.
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PDF summary of the results: http://dev.dspace.org/images/surveys/read%20only_dspace%20community%20networking%20survey.pdf