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About Scholaris

Last modified by Julia Gilmore on 2025-12-01, 19:10

Scholaris is an opt-in Canadian shared repository service that provides hosted infrastructure and support for Canadian institutional repositories. The service is hosted and managed by Scholars Portal, and developed by the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL), the Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL), University of Toronto Libraries (UTL), regional consortia, expert groups and members of the Canadian institutional repository community. 

scholaris.ca

Development

From the Call for Early Adopters (distributed March 2024): 

After separately investigating the feasibility of scalable, shared institutional repository infrastructure, the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) and the Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL) have agreed to work together in the development of a national repository service (‘Scholaris’). The University of Toronto Libraries (UTL) will act as the service provider through Scholars Portal.  

The vision

The development of a national shared repository service provides an opportunity to leverage local expertise, recommended community best practices, and modern approaches to technical service delivery to support the repository community and uplift Canadian research and scholarship. By joining Scholaris, repository teams enjoy a local, institutional branded repository instance that benefits from regular upgrades, maintenance, reporting and troubleshooting, and shared repository expertise, resources, documentation, and communities of practice.

Each participating institution receives their own DSpace instances (dev and prod), and the parallel instances are hosted and managed by the Scholaris technical team through a centralized service delivery model. This model has been designed to allow for efficiencies with common integrations and service delivery, while still allowing flexibility and autonomy, where desired, at the institutional level.
 

Technical and community infrastructure for Scholaris

Technical InfrastructureCommunity Infrastructure
  • Parallel, institutionally-branded DSpace instances (dev and production for each institution)
  • Ongoing technical support and maintenance
  • Ongoing DSpace software upgrades
  • Canadian data hosting
  • Persistent identifiers (Handles, option for DOI registration) 
  • Information Sessions (open to broader repository community)
  • Community Calls (open to Early Adopters)
  • Invitation to join expert groups and access to materials
  • Scholaris mailing list
  • SPOTDocs: Service information, documentation and resources
  • Community Resources

Governance

  • CARL, Shared Repository Infrastructure Advisory Committee (SRIAC) (Terms of Reference)
  • SRIAC is the de facto governing body for Scholaris and meets 3-4 times per year to provide CARL Directors and those working on the service with guidance and recommendations.

Presentations

Early Adopter Program

In Spring 2024, Scholaris launched a two-year Early Adopter Program to develop the service. The program consists of multiple cohort stages beginning in 2024, and is open to consortial member institutions and eligible non-member research organizations across Canada.

Expert Groups

The CARL Network of Expert Groups provide specialized guidance and recommendations on key areas of service development. The following expert groups have been formed:

Planned service development

To be shaped through our work with Early Adopters, advisory and expert groups, and the broader repository community:

  • Service roles and responsibilities (for SP, at local level).
  • ‘Out of box’ service offering; optional supported customizations and integrations.
  • Bilingual service offering.
  • Recommended workflows, minimum standard metadata, policies, etc.
  • Recommendations for DOI support, integrations, alignment with national and international repository standards and best practices.
  • Cost estimation for on-going and add-on services.
  • Use cases for development of custom applications, tools, code contribution, etc.

Responsibilities

Scholars Portal will provide reliable technical hosting, security measures, monitoring, and technical support in line with other services currently being offered, with the potential for integrating digital preservation and other services/workflows, as beneficial to participating organizations.

A governance and financial sustainability plan will be developed by CARL in collaboration with regional consortia and the Shared Repository Infrastructure Advisory Committee (SRIAC). CARL will also support some expert groups to provide technical and operational input in key areas.

Pricing

Migration costs

Please refer to the Early Adopter Program page for more information.

Hosting fees (forthcoming)

  • Hosting fees will be based on CRKN banding system.
  • Pricing will take into account uptake for the service and institutions' desired levels of support.