Technical Evaluations

As part of the OARiNZ Project, Catalyst IT (2006) prepared a report on the “Technical Evaluation of Selected Open Source Repository Solutions”, released in September 2006.

Overview of the Technical Evaluation of Selected Open Repository Solutions

The evaluation looks at three open source repository systems in terms of their suitability for further enhancement and large scale deployment across New Zealand. The systems selected for evaluation are DSpace, EPrints and Fedora.

Evaluation is based on hands-on experience of using each system, the quality of the accompanying documentation, and the associated development community for each system. The major evaluation criteria are:

• Scalability
• Ease of working on code base and extensibility
• Security
• Interoperability
• Ease of deployment
• Ease of system administration
• Internationalisation (multiple language interface)
• Open source (licence type)
• Quality and configurability
• Strength of community

The report concludes that all systems tested were credible repository systems and that each had its own relative advantages and disadvantages. Overall, the conclusion is that within the objectives of the OARiNZ Project, EPrints is the best candidate for a self configuring solution for institutions wanting to set up and host their own repository.