Dspace has a configuration property that makes it possible to show or hide certain metadata fields from the item page. This configuration property expected a boolean value, "true" to hide the metadata value or "false" to show it on the item page. This boolean property was not being taken into account. Metadata values were being hidden regardless of configured boolean value.
Accepted pull request:
https://github.com/DSpace/DSpace/pull/1914
The solution was to update the java class responsible for showing/hiding the metadata fields to take the configured boolean values into account.
Posted on Utopian.io - Rewarding Open Source Contributors