Selecting a Nesstar Replacement for Odesi

This document has been adapted from a report presented to the Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL) by the Odesi Nesstar Replacement Working Group. This was a working group of OCUL Data Community (ODC) members who gathered between June 2021 and February 2022 to explore options for replacing the Odesi Nesstar repository tool. 

The document provides a descriptive summary of the steps undertaken by the group to make a software replacement recommendation to OCUL and its stakeholders. The steps include an environmental scan of software platforms that could be used as replacements for Nesstar and a consultation process with service providers, current and previous Nesstar users at other institutions , and OCUL members. Among the group’s outputs was a preliminary list of functional requirements for migration to the new platform, which is included in this summary. As a result, Scholars Portal is moving forward with the migration of Odesi to Borealis, the Canadian Dataverse Repository. The Background section offers some context for the Working Group’s approach and decision-making process.