LYRASIS, the organization that administers the development of the world’s most popular scientific repository, DSpace, has announced the official end of technical support for DSpace versions 5 and 6.

DSpace version 5, released in 2015, will be no longer supported after January 1, 2023, and DSpace version 6, released in 2016, will be no longer supported after July 1, 2023. After the aforementioned dates, LYRASIS will stop publishing updates and patches for versions 5 and 6.

Due to usability and data security concerns, LYRASIS recommends institutions using old versions of DSpace to upgrade to DSpace 7 as soon as possible. The latest release of DSpace, made with up-to-date technologies, provides a number of new functionalities, a REST API integration interface, and a modern, responsive user interface with the option to incorporate a university’s visual identity. DSpace 7 is also officially recommended by Google Scholar and other scientific metadata collection tools. Upgrading to the latest version of DSpace is therefore an investment in optimal positioning and indexing of a university’s research output.

Currently, dozens of leading Polish universities use DSpace as a repository for storing and sharing their digital resources. However, most of these repositories are based on versions 5, 6 and earlier. This stems from the fact that implementations of scientific repositories, often co-financed by EU funds, have been treated by Polish universities as “one-off” projects, without a long-term plan for maintaining, developing and updating the software at the university. As a result, many academic scientific repositories do not meet modern requirements related to accessibility, security or scalability.

 

PCG Academia, as a certified LYRARIS contributor, supports the process of migration to DSpace 7 and offers a range of services related to the development and maintenance of the university’s scientific repository. Our services include, but are not limited to: installation and configuration of the system, upgrading of the existing software along with data transfer, implementation of new functionalities or even entire modules on individual university request, and long-term maintenance and development based on precisely defined SLA terms.

Dedicated instance of DSpace 7, maintained by PCG Academia, is being updated on an ongoing basis with newly designed features not available in the standard version, such as a Polish language version and adaptation for people with disabilities in accordance with WCAG standard.

PCG Academia already conducted the migration of a DSpace-based scientific repository for one of the best and the largest University in Poland – the Jagiellonian University in Krakow.

Check out the Jagiellonian University Repository on DSpace.