We’re excited to share the highlights of the latest DSpace-CRIS 9 2025.02.01 release! This version brings meaningful improvements that benefit the entire DSpace ecosystem — from enhanced collaboration workflows to performance optimizations and important security fixes. Here’s what you need to know.
✨ New Features & Improvements
Shared Workspace
The Shared Workspace experience has been significantly improved. Now, all members of a Collection’s Submitters group can view and manage every Workspace Item in that Collection, regardless of who created it. Non-submitter users registered as Authors can also see the “Other Workspace Items” menu with role-based permissions preserved. This makes collaborative submission workflows smoother and more transparent.
Open Policy Finder Integration (Replaces SHERPA/RoMEO)
With the SHERPA/RoMEO API dismissed in May 2026, DSpace-CRIS now integrates with the Jisc Open Policy Finder (OPF) API. This includes:
- A dedicated OPF step in the Publications submission process
- OPF logo displayed in Authority search results
- Performance improvements to avoid unnecessary pauses between requests
⚠️ Breaking Change: All SHERPA-related classes, beans, and config IDs have been renamed (sherpa.romeo.* → openpolicyfinder.*). An API key is now required — register at Developers | Open Policy Finder.
Performance & Scalability
- Batch authorization API: A new configurable system reduces the number of requests needed to check user permissions, with a single endpoint returning multiple authorizations at once. This is a big win for repositories with complex permission structures.
- Optimized bitstream retrieval: Bundle-name filtering now happens at the database level via JPQL, eliminating N+1 lookups when resolving item bitstreams.
- Improved Solr export/import tooling: Better handling of large datasets and varied input files.
- Statistics loading improvements: Requests are now split into multiple sub-requests for specific usage reports, improving page load times.
CORE Identifier Support
Added support for CORE identifiers with a new identifier.core subtype and dedicated CORE icon rendering — expanding the range of persistent identifiers DSpace-CRIS can handle.
Audit Trail Enhancements
Ported improvements from DSpace to the Audit system (see Audit Trail feature – DSpace 10.x Documentation). New configuration options allow you to:
- Explicitly enable/disable auditing
- Skip workflow or workspace items from audit logging
Additional Highlights
now available DSpace-CRIS 2025.02.01
- reCAPTCHA for feedback forms: Prevents spam/robot submissions (donated by University of St. Gallen)
- PreSigned URL support for bitstream downloads: Enables proper download tracking in statistics
- Customizable submission form legend: Add guidance text on top of forms, enable/disable as needed
- APA citation export improvements: Enhanced for multiple publication types (co-funded by HEP-VAUD)
- Equipment entity enhancements: New crisequipment.decommission.date metadata field and improved discovery (co-funded by EuroCRIS)
- Privacy Policy as CMS page: Now fully customizable
- Bitstream download in new tabs: Configurable option for better UX
- Control field 001 in MarcXML OAI export: Improved metadata harvesting compliance
- X.com (Twitter) links supported in AuthorityLink rendering
Key Bug Fixes
Security
- Fixed a security vulnerability in ConfigurationRestRepository where configuration properties could be exposed without proper admin authorization checks. Update recommended.
- Fixed machine tokens expiration: Previously set to only 30 minutes, now correctly configured to ~20 years as intended.
Stability & Reliability
- ORCID authentication 401 errors after login
- Login flow resource leaks: Exceptions are now properly handled and contexts always closed
- Filter-media disk space exhaustion: JPEGFilter now cleans up temporary files properly, and is disabled by default when ImageMagick is in use
- Workflow configuration detection: No longer relies on group naming conventions; validates the actual assigned group (donated by kskaiser)
- Health endpoint now correctly returns Actuator status instead of empty JSON
User Experience
- Fixed search results page size changing unexpectedly when switching pages
- Fixed tag search/browse failing for terms containing & and special characters
- Fixed “In workflow since” label incorrectly appearing on archived items
- Fixed social sharing not working properly
- Fixed PlumX tooltips being hidden
- Fixed global search wrong behaviour
- Fixed lucky search redirect
- Removed unnecessary “Angular” label from application title
- Improved default end user agreement
Developer & Admin Fixes
- CollectionExportCli now supports -e parameter for specifying DSpace user email
- JAVA_OPTS can now override hardcoded properties in /bin/dspace
- Object-deletion scripts properly configured for CLI execution
- Improved memory handling for update-metrics script
- Aligned Spanish, Italian, and German translations
🙏 Community Contributions
A special thank you to our community contributors and co-funders:
- University of St. Gallen (HSG) reCAPTCHA for feedback
- kskaiser — Workflow configuration fix
- HEP-VAUD APA citation improvements
- EuroCRIS Equipment entity enhancements
Your contributions make DSpace-CRIS better for everyone!
🔗 Get Started
Upgrade today and take advantage of these improvements. As always, we recommend testing in a staging environment before deploying to production.
Happy upgrading, and thank you for being part of the DSpace community!