Version 4.0

DSpace 4.0 can be downloaded immediately at either of the following locations:

See the DSpace 4.x Release Notes for more information.

DSpace 4.x Release Notes have been incorporated into the DSpace 4.x documentation wiki. The content of that page, and this one, is similar, but it's not a perfect duplicate. This page is for coordinating and planning DSpace Release 4.0, and for communicating this status information to the community. The DSpace 4.x Release Notes page is a historical document, with much of the same material.

 

Table of Contents:

New features in DSpace 4.0

DSpace 4.0 ships with a number of new features. Certain features are automatically enabled by default while others require deliberate activation. 
The following non-exhaustive list contains the major new features in 4.0 that are enabled by default:

Discovery: Search & Browse is now enabled by default in both XMLUI and JSPUI.

Note: The Lucene/DB-based search & browse backend is still supported, but is deprecated and might be removed in a future release. Any new features should use the Discovery API instead of tying directly to Lucene, Solr or Elastic Search.

  • Discovery general enhancements
    • Solr libraries were upgraded to version 4.4 (JSPUI, XMLUI and OAI modules) - by lap
    • Solr search accent insensitive - by ab
    • Solr-based item counter - by im, ab
  • Discovery UI enhancements (both JSPUI and XMLUI)
    • Query spell checking ("did you mean") - XMLUI by kv, JSPUI by lap, ab

Contributors:
lap - Luigi Andrea Pascarelli with the support of CINECA
ab - Andrea Bollini with the support of CINECA
kv - Kevin Van de Velde with the support of @mire
im - Ivan Masár

A new Bootstrap-based default look and feel for JSPUI (see DS-1675 for screenshots)

Kindly contributed by Andrea Bollini & Luigi Andrea Pascarelli with the support of CINECA

JSPUI new features

 

JSPUI porting of features previously available only on XMLUI

Kindly contributed by Keiji Suzuki & Luigi Andrea Pascarelli with the support of CINECA

UI support for metadata batch import from various bibliographic formats

  • Update to Biblio-Transformation-Engine 0.9.2.2
  • Added data loader for OAI-PMH
  • New configuration format to support simultaneous input mappings from the various supported metadata formats
  • New interface for administrators in JSPUI (for file data loaders like bibtex, csv, tsv, endnote and ris)

Kindly contributed by the Greek National Documentation Centre/EKT

SWORDv2 module update, which provides the following improvements: 
  • some general bug fixes including: bitstream url construction, config options, context management and connection pool, ORIGINAL bundle problem (DS-1149)
  • proper METSDSpaceSIP support in both deposit and update
  • proper authentication for accessing actionable bitstreams (i.e. those that can be replaced via sword), tightened security options around mediated actions, and add extra security to the access of descriptive documents (deposit receipts, statements)
  • more configuration options: bundles to expose in Statements, DepositMO extensions (for individual files), and many more
  • some general refactoring
  • addition of 404 responses where necessary
  • better support for add/replace of metadata, and how metadata updates are handled on archived items
  • update to latest version of Java Server library
  • new bitstream formats in the bitstream registry

Kindly contributed by Richard Jones with the support of Cottage Labs

Improved command line features

Kindly contributed by Mark H. Wood with the support of IUPUI University Library

Support simple embargo in XMLUI item display and in AIP import/export

Kindly contributed by Ivan Masár and Terry Brady with the support of Georgetown University

Language switch for xmlui and some basic i18n stuff

Kindly contributed by Claudia Jürgen with the support of TU Dortmund University

Filtering of web spiders from statistics can now match by the spider host's DNS name or the spider's User-Agent string.

Kindly contributed by Mark H. Wood with the support of IUPUI University Library

Several improvements to help Google Scholar better index your content (requested by Google Scholar team). See also Search Engine Optimization recommendations, for ways to further enhance Google Scholar (and other search engine) findability.

Kindly contributed by several members of the DSpace Committer team (see individual tickets for more details).

 
The following list contains all features that are included in the DSpace 4.0 release, but need to be enabled manually.
Review the documentation for these features carefully, especially if you are upgrading from an older version of DSpace.

DOI Support

  • Support for minting new DOIs
  • Support for the DataCite and EZID DOI providers

Kindly contributed by Pascal-Nicolas Becker & Mark Wood with the support of TU Berlin and IUPUI University Library

Support running handle server and application container on separate machines

Kindly contributed by Pascal-Nicolas Becker, Andrea Bollini & Mark Wood with the support of TU Berlin and CINECA

Mobile Theme for XMLUI matures from beta (DS-1679)

Kindly contributed by Elias Tzoc and James Russell with the support of Miami University

Improvements to LDAP Authentication

Kindly contributed by Ivan Masár and Sam Ottenhoff of Longsight for Allegheny College (DS-1078).

Media filter generates better-looking thumbnails

Kindly contributed by Jason Sherman with the support of University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma

Curation Task for Consuming Web Services

Kindly contributed by Richard Rodgers with the support of Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Request a Copy for JSPUI and XMLUI (DS-824)

  • For items with restricted access, allows users to ask the original author for a copy of the item

Original contribution of Adán Román Ruiz (Arvo Consultores). JSPUI version adapted from the Universidade do Minho. XMLUI version funded by Instituto Oceanográfico de España. Additional improvements/bug fixes by Andrea Bollini (CINECA).

A new REST web service API module based on Jersey (a JAX RS 1.0 implementation) (DS-1696)

Provides:

  • Read-only access to unrestricted communities, collections, items and bitstreams
  • Handle lookup
  • JSON (and XML) output formats

Kindly contributed by Peter Dietz with the support of Ohio State University Libraries

Additional information about DSpace 4.0 may be found in the 4.0 Documentation.

A full list of all changes / bug fixes in 4.0 is available in the History section of the 4.0 Documentation.

All non-commercial images in the above table are free-to-use images borrowed from elsewhere or they are logos used to identify their respective products/services. In order: magnifier icon, Apache Solr logo, Bootstrap button, Barre de progression by Mathafix (OpenClipArt), SHERPA/RoMEO logo, Copy Text by Chris Alpaerts (The Noun Project), DSpace diagram, SWORD logo, commandline logo, Package designed by Hakan Yalcin (The Noun Project), Alarm Clock (The Noun Project), flags logo, no spiders logo (created by mhwood), Google Scholar logo, DOI logo, HDL-Enabled logo, phone icon, key icon, hand holding brochure, JAX-RS logo.

Possible JIRA tickets to resolve (automated list)

This is the list of JIRA tickets ("New Features" and Improvements) currently scheduled for 4.0.  There is no guarantee they will all be completed in time for 4.0 release, and tickets may be dropped/added to the list at any time. But, if you'd like to volunteer to help with one, please let us know by attaching a comment to the ticket in question.

Changes

The following changes have already been made to the codebase and will be released in 4.0. Please note that the below listing is dynamically generated, so it will be changing as we continue to add new features, improvements and bug fixes to the 4.0 release.

New Features in 4.0

General Improvements in 4.0

Bug Fixes in 4.0

Organizational Details

Release Coordination

Instead of a single "Release Coordinator", the DSpace 4.0 release will be managed by a "Release Team".

Release Team Leader

Release Team Members

Timeline and Processing

 

DateMilestoneWhat it means
October 07Deadline for feature pull requestsIf you wish to contribute features to DSpace 4.0, you must submit a pull request by this date.
October 09Weekly developers' meeting devoted to review of feature pull requests for 4.0The entire hour's meeting will be used to discuss proposed features submitted by the deadline.
October 16Weekly developers' meeting devoted to review of feature pull requests for 4.0The entire hour's meeting will be used to discuss proposed features submitted by the deadline.
October 21Feature freezeDSpace 4.0 is considered feature-complete on this date. Only bugfixes will be pulled between this date and final release.
October 31Release Candidate 1 taggedA DSpace 4.0 Release Candidate will be available for wider testing.
November 04-15TestathonIntensive public testing of the RC is invited.  The Release Team will focus on getting problems resolved.
December 03Release Candidate 2 tagged

An updated DSpace 4.0 Release Candidate will be available for wider testing.

December 05-06Release Candidate 3 taggedIf necessary, an updated DSpace 4.0 Release Candidate will be available for wider testing.
December 13 or 16DSpace 4.0 release taggedDSpace 4.0 is released for general use.

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

Contribute to DSpace

On October 21st, the window for contributing new functionality to the DSpace 4 release formally closed. Bugfixes are currently still considered.

Any contribution is always welcome! Contributions of new functionality will be considered for future releases of DSpace. 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. General Code Contribution Guidelines are available. Anyone is welcome to ask questions on the dspace-devel mailing list.