DSpace 7.0 release date--August 2, 2021

[Jenn Bielewski]

DSpace 7.0 will be released on/by Monday, August 2, 2021!

The full release announcement & overview can be found in the OR2021 talk "DSpace 7.0 : Coming to a DSpace near You!" (slides, video DSpace update begins at minute 19:00)

This release finally brings together two user interfaces and their communities, who had previously been working in parallel. The ambition is to bring together the best of both JSPUI and XMLUI worlds, meaning that all features you love and use are re-imagined, and re-implemented on a single new user interface technology, Angular.  This new UI is backed by a brand new REST API, which opens all data & features to the web, allowing DSpace to integrate or interact with external systems/services like never before.

The switch to Angular also allows for more rapid innovation. Angular has the potential to attract developers with prior expertise, given the popularity and global traction of Angular across industries.

What will be included in DSpace 7.0?

The efforts contributed to DSpace 7 are the largest endeavour ever undertaken by the DSpace community. The DSpace 7.0 release will concentrate on the following major features:

1. A new User Interface based on Angular (to replace XMLUI and JSPUI). This work is going on in the "main" branch of https://github.com/DSpace/dspace-angular
   1. The goal of the new UI is to implement all major features of both XMLUI and JSPUI in a single, modern UI. 
   2. An exhaustive list of all major features already in 7.0 can be found in the 7.0 Release Notes (for each Beta).
   3. NOTE: Some, lower-priority, minor DSpace 6 XMLUI or JSPUI features have been delayed for a later 7.x release (see below). This decision was made to make 7.0 available as soon as possible.
2. A refactored/enhanced REST API (using modern REST best practices). This work is going on in the "main" branch of https://github.com/DSpace/DSpace
   1. Additionally, a new REST Contract (describing all API interactions) is being written at https://github.com/DSpace/RestContract
3. Redesigned submissions and workflows featuring a one page submission process with a drag-and-drop interface and newly redesigned MyDSpace.
4. A new Configurable Entities object model, which allows for the creation of new "typed" Items, and storing relationships between Items.  This feature will allow for tighter integration with external identifier systems (e.g. ORCID), current research information systems (CRIS), journal publishing systems, etc. This work was completed by the DSpace 7 Entities Working Group.
   1. Early technical documentation is available at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wEmHirFzrY3qgGtRr2YBQwGOvH1IuTVGmxDIdnqvwxM/edit

Please see the wiki for the full details and future 7.x releases. Stay tuned for more updates.

Questions about DSpace 7? Please see this working document for your question/answer or to add a question.

Thank you,

Jenn Bielewski
DSpace Marketing Interest Group Chair