Presented by Sven De Labey at Dspace Ethiopia Interest Group Meeting and Training, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 28 October – 1 November 2013.

1. DSpace User Group - Addis Ababa - Ethiopia
DSpace
State of the art
www.atmire.com

2. OVERVIEW
1. What DSpace is and is not
2. Where do we come from?
3. Where are we going?

3. QUICK INTRODUCTION
MEET THE STAKEHOLDERS
Institution
Researcher
Admin staff
Other
institutions
End User

4. 1. RESEARCHER: LOOKING FOR VISIBILITY ON
HIS/ HER RESEARCH
I want other people to discover my
research, but my own website is not really
Institution
driving traffic...
Researcher
Admin staff
Other
institutions
End User

5. 2. INSTITUTIONS: LOOKING FOR AN EASY
MEANS TO PUBLISH SCIENTIFIC OUTPUT
We want to showcase our
scientific output...
Institution
Researcher
Admin staff
...and we need a structured approach to
report our research statistics to our
sponsors
End User
Other
institutions

6. 3. ADMIN STAFF: LOOKING FOR
CONFIGURABILITY AND EASY-OF-USE
Ok, but with all these frequent staff and
department changes, I really want something
Institution
that is easy to maintain...
Researcher
Admin staff
Other
institutions
End User

7. 4. END USERS: EXPECTING THE SAME USABILITY
OF OTHER CONTEMPORARY WEBSITES
Institution
Researcher
Admin staff
Without a user-friendly solution for
searching/ browsing information, I’m not really
encouraged to discover all that research...
End User
Other
institutions

8. 5. OTHER INSTITUTIONS: LOOKING FOR
OPPORTUNITIES TO WORK TOGETHER
Institution our research is quite related to theirs...
Some of
Researcher
it might be interesting to “harvest” their
Admin output in our own repository
scientificstaff
Other
institutions
End User

9. DSPACE: AN OPEN-SOURCE REPOSITORY
SOLUTION, DESIGNED FOR SUCH USE CASES
Institution
Researcher
Admin staff
DSpace
End User
Other
institutions

10. HOW DOES DSPACE DO THAT?
Let’s go through some examples of live repositories
and see how DSpace caters for these needs...

11. 1. CONTENT DISSEMINATION
EXAMPLE: UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN
Descriptive metadata on Item Pages
(also indexed by search engines)
DSpace allows institutions
to easily disseminate their
scientific output

12. 2. PUBLISHING WORKFLOW
EXAMPLE: DEFAULT DSPACE
User-friendly submission
interface for helping
submitters to add new
content
Assistance for
Administrators to review
and validate these items

13. 3. HIERARCHICAL CONTENT MODEL
EXAMPLE: WORLD BANK

14. 4. CONTENT DISCOVERY
EXAMPLE: SAM (PARIS TECH UNIVERSITY)
browse results, or gradually refine
your search by adding “filters”

15. 5. AUTOMATED COLLECTION OF STATISTICS
EXAMPLE: DEFAULT DSPACE
How many times did
people visit this item?
How “productive” is
my current
Validation Workflow?
What are our
visitors looking for?

16. 6. CONFIGURABLE AND OPEN SOURCE
EXAMPLE: UNIVERSITY OF LILLE
Custom user interface, based on
standard Mirage theme

17. 7. INTEROPERABILITY
Apache Tomcat
Apache HTTP Server

18. WHAT DSPACE IS NOT (YET?)
•
DSpace does not have a hierarchical item model
•
•
The DSpace object model is inherently flat.
DSpace does not have a CRIS-like object model
•
•
•
Items are objects with their own metadata
Authors and Departments are not!
Dspace does not have a standardized API that opens
the full functionality of DSpace to external applications
•
Current integration focus is on OAI and SWORD
•
REST API is candidate to become the first true “API” of DSpace (...but
which one will make it?)

19. WHAT IT IS NOT
NO HIERARCHICAL ITEMS - (SIMPLICITY!)
0..*
0..1
Community
1
0..*
Collection
0..*
0..1
0..*
Bundle
1
1..*
1
0..*
Item
1
1..*
Bitstream
Bitstream
Format
0..*

20. WHAT DSPACE IS NOT (YET?)
•
DSpace does not have a hierarchical item model
•
•
The DSpace object model is inherently flat.
DSpace does not have a CRIS-like object model
•
•
•
Items are objects with their own metadata
Authors and Departments are not!
Dspace does not have a standardized API that opens
the full functionality of DSpace to external applications
•
Current integration focus is on OAI and SWORD
•
REST API is candidate to become the first true “API” of DSpace (...but
which one will make it?)

21. WHAT IT IS NOT
“FLAT” METADATA SCHEMA
0..*
0..1
Community
1
0..*
Collection
0..*
0..1
Not stored as an object, but as
metadata with the Item
0..*
Bundle
1
1..*
Item
0..*
Author
1
Affiliation
1..*
Bitstream
1
0..*
Bitstream
Format
Project

22. WHAT DSPACE IS NOT (YET?)
•
DSpace does not have a hierarchical item model
•
•
The DSpace object model is inherently flat.
DSpace does not have a CRIS-like object model
•
•
•
Items are objects with their own metadata
Authors and Departments are not!
Dspace does not have a standardized API that opens
the full functionality of DSpace to external applications
•
Current integration focus is on OAI and SWORD
•
REST API is candidate to become the first true “API” of DSpace (...but
which one will make it?)

23. WHAT IT IS NOT
STRONG FOCUS ON DEPOSIT/ HARVESTING
External system doing
a submission
repository deposit
Sword
DSpace
OAI
repository harvesting
External system doing
a harvest

24. WHAT IT IS NOT
...BUT NOT YET A STANDARDIZED “API”
External system doing
a submission
repository deposit
External system
querying DSpace
External system
retrieving Item
metadata
External system
retrieving Item
bitstream
Sword
???
DSpace
OAI
repository harvesting
See further: REST API?
External system doing
a harvest

25. DSPACE IS SOFTWARE “IN EVOLUTION”
1. What DSpace is and is not
2. Where do we come from?
3. Where are we going?

26. 2010-2011: DSPACE 1.7
IMPROVEMENTS TO THE BASE THEME
DSpace 1.7
1.8
3.x
XMLUI theme, but
still rather difficult to
customize
Basic search &
Browse
20/10/2010

27. 2010-2011: DSPACE 1.7
IMPROVEMENTS TO THE BASE THEME
DSpace 1.7
1.8
Source: https://wiki.duraspace.org/display/DSDOC17/History
3.x

28. 2011-2012: DSPACE 1.8
FINAL RELEASE OF “FACETED SEARCH”
DSpace 1.7
1.8
3.x
Much better search
& browse experience
for end users

29. 2011-2012: DSPACE 1.8
CONFIGURABLE WORKFLOWS
DSpace 1.7
1.8
3.x
Ability to configure the order
in which workflow steps are
executed

30. 2011-2012: DSPACE 1.8
BETTER TECHNIQUES FOR QUALITY ASSURANCE
DSpace 1.7
1.8
3.x

31. 2012-2013: DSPACE 3.X
SNIPPETS, HIGHLIGHTING, RELATED ITEMS
DSpace 1.7
1.8
3.x

32. 2012-2013: DSPACE 3.X
BETA FEATURE: ITEM VERSIONING
DSpace 1.7
1.8
3.x
Basic support for Item
Versioning (BETA)

33. OVERVIEW
1. What DSpace is and is not
2. Where do we come from?
3. Where are we going?

34. OVERVIEW
1. Trend towards “Social/ Sharing”
2. Further Systems Integration (REST)
3. Advanced Authority (ORCID)

35. 1. SHARING & SOCIAL MEDIA
RECENT QUESTIONS FROM OUR CLIENTS
“How can we help end users to share their
favorite items on Facebook?”
“Is there a way to send automated
updates to Facebook when we submit a
new item to DSpace?”
“Users should have their private
“item basket” in DSpace, in which
they keep their favorite items”
“We have a lot of visual content. Can our visitors somehow share these
images on their Pinterest site? This would drive traffic to our repository”
“Can we extend the Item pages in DSpace to
allow visitors to rate an item and provide
user comments?”

36. 1. SHARING & SOCIAL MEDIA - CASE STUDY
FROM A REPOSITORY TARGETING EXPERT USERS...

37. 1. SHARING & SOCIAL MEDIA - CASE STUDY
...TO A SOCIAL PLATFORM FOR NON-EXPERTS

38. 1. SHARING & SOCIAL MEDIA - CASE STUDY
...TO A SOCIAL PLATFORM FOR NON-EXPERTS

39. 1. SHARING & SOCIAL MEDIA - CASE STUDY
...TO A SOCIAL PLATFORM FOR NON-EXPERTS
Virtual expositions
allow users to discover
the content of the
repository

40. OVERVIEW
1. Trend towards “Social/ Sharing”
2. Further Systems Integration (REST)
3. Advanced Authority (ORCID)

41. 2. THE REST API
FURTHER SYSTEMS INTEGRATION
External system doing
a submission
repository deposit
External system
querying DSpace
External system
retrieving Item
metadata
External system
retrieving Item
bitstream
However...many
many many
discussions ongoing...
Sword
REST
API
DSpace
OAI
repository harvesting
External system doing
a harvest

42. OVERVIEW
1. Trend towards “Social/ Sharing”
2. Further Systems Integration (REST)
3. Advanced Authority (ORCID)

43. RESEARCHERS ARE MOBILE PEOPLE...
• When I move to another institution, I will typically receive a
new staff ID
• Often, this staff ID will be used as an “authority”, linked
to the papers I submit in that institution’s repository
• ...but my other papers at my previous institution will still
contain my other staff ID....
• How do I ensure that both sets are linked to me?

44. ...AND THEY OFTEN WORK TOGETHER ACROSS
UNIVERSITIES
• I recently wrote a paper together with a colleague
from another university
• We are now archiving this paper in our respective repositories
• Since I don’t have a staff ID at the other
institution, how can my colleague still include my name with
authority control?
• See also: duplicate detection in the context of nation-wide harvesting
(Belgium, France, ...)

45. SOLUTION PROPOSED BY ORCID

46. SO TO CONCLUDE....
WE HAVE LOTS OF IDEAS FOR DISCUSSION :)
• Is DSpace evolving too slow? Too fast?
• How do you want to see DSpace evolve?
•
More social? (Facebook, Twitter, User profiles?)
•
•
More expert-minded? (Endnote, Zotero, Orcid, ...)
•
More CRIS-like? (Organisation Units, Research Projects and Researchers as
first class objects with their own metadata?)
More mobile? (More development effort on tablet and smartphone
version?)
• Do you think the REST API is a core feature for the next release of
DSpace? Should it be integrated in the core, or released as add-on
module?
IT WOULD BE GREAT TO DISCUSS SOME OF THESE ELEMENTS WITH YOU TODAY!!