DSpace

DSpace is a groundbreaking digital repository system that captures, stores, indexes, preserves, and redistributes an organization's research data. DSpace is jointly developed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Libraries and Hewlett-Packard Labs. The DSpace software platform serves a variety of digital archiving needs. DSpace is freely available as Open Source Software.

Contents of Dspace

DSpace accepts all forms of digital materials including text, images, video, and audio files. Possible content includes the following:

• Documents, such as articles, preprints, working papers, technical reports, conference papers
• Books
• Theses
• Data sets
• Computer programs
• Visualizations, simulations, and other models
• Multimedia publications
• Administrative records
• Published books
• Overlay journals
• Bibliographic datasets
• Images
• Audio files
• Video files
• Reformatted digital library collections
• Earning objects
• Web pages

Features

• DSpace supports OAI – PMH (Open Archives Initiatives Protocol for Metadata Harvesting) Resumption tokens

• DSpace also includes batch tools to import and export items in a simple directory structur

• DSpace exposes the Dublin Core metadata for items that are publicly (anonymously) accessible

• DSpace uses the CNRI Handle System for creating identifiers

• DSpace supports uploading and downloading of bit streams as-is. This is fine for the majority of commonly used file formats such as PDFs, Microsoft Word documents, spreadsheets

• Document discovery and retrieval

• Digital preservation                                                                                            

Reasons to Use DSpace

• Largest community of users and developers worldwide
• Free open source software
• Completely customizable to fit our needs
• Used by many educational, government, private and commercial institutions
• Can be installed out of the box
• Can mange and preserve all types of digital content

Open Source Software

Open source software is freely distributed and must be available to anyone to use for any purpose. If software is open, then programmers can read modify and redistribute the source code for the software and this enables the software to evolve at a high speed. Any number of people can fix bugs, adapt the software to better meet their needs, or improve it and then share their efforts with larger community of interested parties. The term open source refers to software in which the source code is freely available for others to view, amend, and adapt. In this sense, Open Source is similar to peer review, which is used to strengthen the progress of scholarly communication.

Open Source promotes software reliability and quality by supporting independent peer review and rapid evolution of source code. To be certified as open source, the license of a program must guarantee the right to read, redistribute, modify, and use it freely. Open Source Software differs from commercial and proprietary software. Open source software includes the original code for the program, whatever language it is written in and that it also may be subsequently redistributed for free.

Adopting Open Source Software requires the same type of evaluation as purchasing commercial software, but with some modification. Using Open Source Software to provide core functionality, such as library management system might be seen as too risky, while open source software that provides stand-alone functionality that complements current systems might be acceptable.

Open Source Software is software licensed under an agreement that conforms to the Open Source Definition

• Access to Source Code

• Freedom to Redistribute

• Freedom to Modify

• Non-Discriminatory Licensing (licensee/product)

• Integrity of Authorship

• Redistribution in accordance with the Open Source License Agreement

Open Source Software is distributed with its source code. The Open Source Definition has three essential features

• It allows free re-distribution of the software without royalties or licensing fees to the author

• It requires that source code be distributed with the software or otherwise made available for no more than the cost of distribution

• It allows anyone to modify the software or derive other software from it, and to redistribute the modified software under the same terms.