How to Contribute DSpace

DSpace is community-driven software. There are many ways to contribute to DSpace.

DSpace Development Fund

Contributions to the DSpace Development Fund will help support features prioritized by DSpace Leadership. Upcoming features and functionality we are seeking to fund include the following:

  • ORCID integration
  • Signposting and other interoperability technologies recommended by COAR's Next Generation Repositories project
  • Tools for importing metadata from arXiv, CiNii, Crossref, PubMed, Scopus, OpenAIRE, etc
  • Sherpa Romeo integration
  • Full support of configurable workflows

And these are just some of the features we planned to include into DSpace. For more details, you can also see our development priorities and track progress via the GitHub boards where you can see all tiers and release boards.

Are you interested in supporting the DSpace Development Fund?

Here are some ways you or your institution can support DDF:

  • The best way to support DSpace is still through membership. A large portion of membership fees go directly into the development of DSpace. If your organization is not a member yet, please join us!
  • If your organization is already a member, increase your membership fee one time only or on a recurring basis. We'll count the increase toward the DDF.
  • If your organization can't commit to membership but would like to support DSpace development, you can make a one-time contribution of any size to the DDF.
  • If you would like to make an individual contribution (outside of your organization), you can make a one-time contribution to the DDF.

Contact us at DSpaceDonations@lyrasis.org if you would like to know more and contribute. Please visit the wiki for updates and thank you to our contributors to date!

DSpace continues to grow and evolve to support open repositories because of generous contributions of time and resources by the global DSpace community. Please consider contributing to help us maintain this critical development work and to enhance the software you use.

SCOSS Pledge and Funding

The Global Sustainability Coalition for Open Science Services (SCOSS), selected DSpace in their third round of pledging. SCOSS, established in 2017, is a network of influential organizations committed to helping secure Open Access and Open Source infrastructure well into the future by identifying non-commercial services essential to Open Science and making qualified recommendations on which of these services should be considered for funding support. On an annual basis, SCOSS calls on the Open Science community to financially support, for a period of three years, recommended infrastructure deemed important by SCOSS.

As of September 2021, SCOSS has successfully completed two pledging rounds and recently announced it’s third round and is actively promoting funding for 3 Open Source programs:

SCOSS understands the importance of DSpace and its global community’s efforts to support and further develop and sustain DSpace. Please take a moment to view the DSpace pitch.

  • SCOSS funding target for DSpace: Operational funding for 2 years: €663,074/ $763,473
  • If you are interested in pledging to DSpace, download the SCOSS DSpace flyer, which includes details about the suggested funding structure.
  • Ready to pledge? Contact DSpaceSCOSS@lyrasis.org

Ways To Contribute and Participate

You do not have to just contribute code! There are other ways you can contribute:

  • Become a member - DSpace Members are leaders from university, research, library organizations, and others, who have made a financial commitment to sustaining and further developing DSpace.
  • Communicate - Use the Mailing Lists, this Wiki and the Slack to communicate with the community
  • Congregate - Attend user groups, conferences, library events, developer meetings - and any other venue where DSpace users meet to share information and ideas. If you are a developer (or just interested in developer discussions), join the weekly DSpace Developer Meetings. If you are a repository manager, you may wish to volunteer for the DSpace Community Advisory Team or attend their meetings / online discussions.
  • Test - Download and try out beta releases; provide bug reports, experiences, feedback. Our DSpace Demo Server provides a place to test the latest and greatest version of DSpace. If you find a bug, report it via our Issue Tracker
  • Develop - Contribute bug fixes, new features, developer cycles. Contributing code is far easier than you might think! See the How To Contribute Code section below and the Code Contribution Guidelines for more details.
  • Translate - Translate the DSpace user interface into your language. See DSpace 7 Translation - Internationalization (i18n) - Localization (l10n) for more details.
  • Prototype - The best way to gain support for an idea is to build and share prototype code. If you'd like to share existing prototypes, see the Code Contribution Guidelines for more details.
  • Deploy - Share your experiences in deploying DSpaces in different organizations and situations, at large and small scales
  • Support - Become active members on the mailing lists, answer others' queries and help solve their technical problems
  • Experiment - Take the system for a spin, try it out with different types of content and scenarios; tell everyone what you find. Again, the DSpace Demo Server provides a place to experiment with the latest and greatest version of DSpace. (If you are running a larger, scalability test experiment on the Demo Server, please let us know by emailing the 'dspace-devel' mailing list
  • Donate content and metadata - To test and experiment with DSpace, free test collections unencumbered by restrictive usage rights are needed. Contact us via the mailing lists if you have content to donate for testing.
  • Request new features / Share ideas - Is there something that you really need out of DSpace or isn't working right? Request new features/improvements or report bugs via our Issue Tracker. You can also vote on existing features, or add your own comments/suggestions. Both of these can help developers decide which issues are the most important to the community. See the below section on How To Contribute Ideas or Suggest New Features for more details.
  • Help Improve Documentation - Our DSpace Documentation is now managed directly via a new section of our Wiki: DSpace Documentation. Although normal Wiki users cannot edit that area of the Wiki, you can always add comments for additions/changes/suggestions. If you are interested in contributing more formally, volunteer to help via one of the mailing lists, and we can add you to our Documentation Team and provide you with access rights to edit/improve the Documentation directly.
  • Let us know if there's a way we can ease the process of contributing to DSpace.
  • Don't be shy! Contributions don't have to be 100% polished or perfect; no one will think any the less of you. "Share early, share often" is a well-known open source mantra. The sooner you contribute something, the sooner others can help with the polishing, and you no longer have to maintain the customization against the evolving core DSpace platform, since it will be part of the platform!