(Very Rough) Summary

Over the last few years, the Steering Group along with various strategic working groups have validated the following vision statements which describe the goals of the DSpace open source product:

1. DSpace will focus on the fundamentals of the modern "Institutional Repository" use case. We are striving to meet the IR needs of the next 5-10 years.
2. DSpace will be "lean", with agility and flexibility as primary goals.
3. DSpace will include a "core" set of functionality that can be "extended" (think plugins) or have "hooks" (integration points) to complimentary services/tools
4. DSpace will be designed in such a way that it can be easily/quickly configured to integrate with new & future tools/services in the larger digital scholarship "ecosystem"
5. DSpace will support low-cost, hosted solutions and deployments (by featuring an easy, "just works" setup)

These five statements lead us to a proposed "value proposition" for the DSpace platform (DRAFT)

DSpace is a turn-key web application for maintaining, disseminating and promoting the digital resources or digital output of an organization and its members.

Based on this proposed value proposition and vision statements, the Steering Group recommends the following actions corresponding to each goal:

Goal 1: DSpace will focus on the fundamentals of the modern "Institutional Repository" use case.

• Action 1A: Verify and validate the needs of a "modern Institutional Repository". This is instrumental in defining the value proposition of DSpace.
  
  • This activity has already has begun part of the 2014 Vision Survey and Use Case gathering.