DSpace
Encyclopedia
DSpace is an open source software package that provides the tools for management of digital asset
s, and is commonly used as the basis for an institutional repository
. It supports a wide variety of data, including books, theses, 3D digital scans of objects, photographs, film, video, research data sets and other forms of content. The data is arranged as community collections of items, which bundle bitstreams together.
DSpace is also intended as a platform for digital preservation
activities. Since its release in 2002, as a product of the HP-MIT Alliance, it has been installed and is in production at over 800 institutions around the globe, from large universities to small higher education colleges, cultural organizations, and research centers. It is shared under a BSD licence, which enables users to customize or extend the software as needed.
in Cambridge, Massachusetts
. In March 2004 the first DSpace User Group Meeting (DSUG) took place at Hotel@MIT, and it was there that the first discussions concerning the DSpace community and its future governance were discussed in earnest. The DSpace Federation formed a loose grouping of interested institutions, while the DSpace Committers group (see Community Development Model below) was formed shortly after, consisting of five developers from HP Labs, MIT, OCLC
, University of Cambridge
, and University of Edinburgh
. Later two further developers from Australian National University
and Texas A&M University
also joined this group. DSpace 1.3 was released in 2005, and at around the same time the second DSpace User Group Meeting was held at the University of Cambridge. Following this, two further smaller user group meetings were spawned, the first in January/February 2006 in Sydney
, and the second in April 2006 in Bergen, Norway. In March 2008, the DSpace Community released DSpace 1.5. A further user group meeting was held at the University of Gothenburg in October 2009, at which the key features of the 1.6 release were shown. In March 2010, DSpace 1.6 was released, closely followed by the 1.7 release in December 2010.
and the DSpace Foundation joined their organizations to pursue a common mission. The joint non-profit organization is called DuraSpace . DuraSpace's mission is to provide leadership and innovation in open source and cloud-based technologies primarily for libraries, universities, research centers, and cultural heritage organizations. DuraSpace provides leadership and support for both DSpace and Fedora
.
. The developments by these contributors are then added to the distribution under the curation of a core team of committer
s, whose job is to ensure that the code meets the various guidelines laid out in the developer documentation, and that it contributes effectively to the direction of DSpace development (which should be/is decided by the community as a whole). The community is serviced technologically by a development base at SourceForge
, and a number of mailing lists for technical queries and development discussion, as well as a general list for non-technical community members.
Membership of the community is implied by being interested and involved - there are no formal membership fees or lists.
. It uses a relational database, and supports the use of PostgreSQL
and Oracle
. It currently support two primary web interfaces—a classic one (JSPUI) which uses JSP
and the Java Servlet API, and a newer interface (XMLUI) based on Apache Cocoon
and using XML
and XSLT
technologies. DSpace holdings are made available primarily via a web interface, but it also supports the OAI-PMH v2.0, and is capable of exporting METS
(Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard) packages. Future versions are likely to see increasing use of web services, and changes to the user interface
layer.
DSpace supports the common interoperability standards used in the repository domain, such as Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting
, SWORD
, OpenSearch
, and RSS
.
Digital asset
A digital asset is any item of text or media that has been formatted into a binary source that includes the right to use it. A digital file without the right to use it is not an asset. Digital assets are categorised in three major groups which may be defined as textual content , images and...
s, and is commonly used as the basis for an institutional repository
Institutional repository
An Institutional repository is an online locus for collecting, preserving, and disseminating - in digital form - the intellectual output of an institution, particularly a research institution....
. It supports a wide variety of data, including books, theses, 3D digital scans of objects, photographs, film, video, research data sets and other forms of content. The data is arranged as community collections of items, which bundle bitstreams together.
DSpace is also intended as a platform for digital preservation
Digital preservation
Digital preservation is the set of processes, activities and management of digital information over time to ensure its long term accessibility. The goal of digital preservation is to preserve materials resulting from digital reformatting, and particularly information that is born-digital with no...
activities. Since its release in 2002, as a product of the HP-MIT Alliance, it has been installed and is in production at over 800 institutions around the globe, from large universities to small higher education colleges, cultural organizations, and research centers. It is shared under a BSD licence, which enables users to customize or extend the software as needed.
History
The first version of DSpace was released in November 2002, following a joint effort by developers from MIT and HP LabsHP Labs
HP Labs is the exploratory and advanced research group for Hewlett-Packard. The lab has some 600 researchersin seven locations throughout the world....
in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...
. In March 2004 the first DSpace User Group Meeting (DSUG) took place at Hotel@MIT, and it was there that the first discussions concerning the DSpace community and its future governance were discussed in earnest. The DSpace Federation formed a loose grouping of interested institutions, while the DSpace Committers group (see Community Development Model below) was formed shortly after, consisting of five developers from HP Labs, MIT, OCLC
OCLC
OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc. is "a nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world’s information and reducing information costs"...
, University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
, and University of Edinburgh
University of Edinburgh
The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583, is a public research university located in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The university is deeply embedded in the fabric of the city, with many of the buildings in the historic Old Town belonging to the university...
. Later two further developers from Australian National University
Australian National University
The Australian National University is a teaching and research university located in the Australian capital, Canberra.As of 2009, the ANU employs 3,945 administrative staff who teach approximately 10,000 undergraduates, and 7,500 postgraduate students...
and Texas A&M University
Texas A&M University
Texas A&M University is a coeducational public research university located in College Station, Texas . It is the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System. The sixth-largest university in the United States, A&M's enrollment for Fall 2011 was over 50,000 for the first time in school...
also joined this group. DSpace 1.3 was released in 2005, and at around the same time the second DSpace User Group Meeting was held at the University of Cambridge. Following this, two further smaller user group meetings were spawned, the first in January/February 2006 in Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, and the second in April 2006 in Bergen, Norway. In March 2008, the DSpace Community released DSpace 1.5. A further user group meeting was held at the University of Gothenburg in October 2009, at which the key features of the 1.6 release were shown. In March 2010, DSpace 1.6 was released, closely followed by the 1.7 release in December 2010.
DSpace Foundation
On 17 July 2007, HP and MIT jointly announced the formation of the DSpace Foundation, a non-profit organization that will provide leadership and support for the DSpace community.DuraSpace
On 12 May 2009, Fedora CommonsFedora (software)
Fedora is a modular architecture built on the principle that interoperability and extensibility is best achieved by the integration of data, interfaces, and mechanisms as clearly defined modules...
and the DSpace Foundation joined their organizations to pursue a common mission. The joint non-profit organization is called DuraSpace . DuraSpace's mission is to provide leadership and innovation in open source and cloud-based technologies primarily for libraries, universities, research centers, and cultural heritage organizations. DuraSpace provides leadership and support for both DSpace and Fedora
Fedora (software)
Fedora is a modular architecture built on the principle that interoperability and extensibility is best achieved by the integration of data, interfaces, and mechanisms as clearly defined modules...
.
Community Development Model
The DSpace community has attempted to base its formal structure along the same lines as the Apache Foundation community development model. That is, there is a user-base, within which is contained a subset of developers, some of whom are contributors to the core codebaseCodebase
The term codebase, or code base, is used in software development to mean the whole collection of source code used to build a particular application or component. Typically, the codebase includes only human-written source code files, and not, e.g., source code files generated by other tools or...
. The developments by these contributors are then added to the distribution under the curation of a core team of committer
Committer
A committer is an individual who is able to modify the source code of a particular piece of open-source software.-Common Roles:Project committers are usually the lead developers of a project and usually are the ones responsible for the majority of changes and as such as seen as trusted members of...
s, whose job is to ensure that the code meets the various guidelines laid out in the developer documentation, and that it contributes effectively to the direction of DSpace development (which should be/is decided by the community as a whole). The community is serviced technologically by a development base at SourceForge
SourceForge
SourceForge Enterprise Edition is a collaborative revision control and software development management system. It provides a front-end to a range of software development lifecycle services and integrates with a number of free software / open source software applications .While originally itself...
, and a number of mailing lists for technical queries and development discussion, as well as a general list for non-technical community members.
Membership of the community is implied by being interested and involved - there are no formal membership fees or lists.
Technology
DSpace is written in JavaJava (programming language)
Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities...
. It uses a relational database, and supports the use of PostgreSQL
PostgreSQL
PostgreSQL, often simply Postgres, is an object-relational database management system available for many platforms including Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, MS Windows and Mac OS X. It is released under the PostgreSQL License, which is an MIT-style license, and is thus free and open source software...
and Oracle
Oracle database
The Oracle Database is an object-relational database management system produced and marketed by Oracle Corporation....
. It currently support two primary web interfaces—a classic one (JSPUI) which uses JSP
JavaServer Pages
JavaServer Pages is a Java technology that helps software developers serve dynamically generated web pages based on HTML, XML, or other document types...
and the Java Servlet API, and a newer interface (XMLUI) based on Apache Cocoon
Apache Cocoon
Apache Cocoon, usually just called Cocoon, is a web application framework built around the concepts of pipeline, separation of concerns and component-based web development. The framework focuses on XML and XSLT publishing and is built using the Java programming language...
and using XML
XML
Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....
and XSLT
XSLT
XSLT is a declarative, XML-based language used for the transformation of XML documents. The original document is not changed; rather, a new document is created based on the content of an existing one. The new document may be serialized by the processor in standard XML syntax or in another format,...
technologies. DSpace holdings are made available primarily via a web interface, but it also supports the OAI-PMH v2.0, and is capable of exporting METS
METS
The Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard is a metadata standard for encoding descriptive, administrative, and structural metadata regarding objects within a digital library, expressed using the XML schema language of the World Wide Web Consortium...
(Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard) packages. Future versions are likely to see increasing use of web services, and changes to the user interface
User interface
The user interface, in the industrial design field of human–machine interaction, is the space where interaction between humans and machines occurs. The goal of interaction between a human and a machine at the user interface is effective operation and control of the machine, and feedback from the...
layer.
DSpace supports the common interoperability standards used in the repository domain, such as Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting
Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting
OAI-PMH is a protocol developed by the Open Archives Initiative. It is used to harvest the metadata descriptions of the records in an archive so that services can be built using metadata from many archives...
, SWORD
SWORD (protocol)
SWORD is an interoperability standard that allows digital repositories to accept the deposit of content from multiple sources in different formats via a standardized protocol...
, OpenSearch
OpenSearch
OpenSearch is a collection of technologies that allow publishing of search results in a format suitable for syndication and aggregation. It is a way for websites and search engines to publish search results in a standard and accessible format....
, and RSS
RSS
-Mathematics:* Root-sum-square, the square root of the sum of the squares of the elements of a data set* Residual sum of squares in statistics-Technology:* RSS , "Really Simple Syndication" or "Rich Site Summary", a family of web feed formats...
.
See also
- EPrintsEPrintsEPrints is a free and open source software package for building open access repositories that are compliant with the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting. It shares many of the features commonly seen in Document Management systems, but is primarily used for institutional...
- FedoraFedora (software)Fedora is a modular architecture built on the principle that interoperability and extensibility is best achieved by the integration of data, interfaces, and mechanisms as clearly defined modules...
- SWORDSWORD (protocol)SWORD is an interoperability standard that allows digital repositories to accept the deposit of content from multiple sources in different formats via a standardized protocol...
External links
- Wikiversity article discussing DSpace
- Official website
- DSpace Wiki
- Sites running DSpace software
- DSpace at MIT
- DSpace at The Open University, Sri Lanka