Reports

 
The Open Archives Forum project produced several reports during 2002 and 2003. These reports are made available here. Special main topics as well as excerpts from these reports are likewise to find at the Resources pages.

• Project presentation
  This briefly sets out the objectives, describes the work and expected results of the OA-Forum project, and gives some administrative details.
   
• Workshop reports
   
  • Workshop report 1 (pdf-file, 152 KB)
    This describes the 1st OA-Forum workshop, held in Pisa, 13-14 May 2002:
    "Creating a European Forum on Open Archives Activities"
     
  • Workshop report 2 (pdf-file, 242 KB)
    This describes the 2nd OA-Forum workshop, held in Lisbon, 6-7 December 2002:
    "Open Access to Hidden Resources"
     
  • Workshop report 3 (pdf-file, 232 KB)
    This describes the 3rd OA-Forum workshop, held in Berlin, 27-29 March 2003:
    "Networking Multimedia Resources"
     
  • Workshop report 4 (pdf-file, 78 KB)
    This describes the 4th OA-Forum workshop, held in Bath, 4-5 September 2003:
    "In Practice, Good Practice: the Future of Open Archives"
     
• Liaison report    (pdf-file, 38 KB)
   
  This reports documents the exchange channel established with the OAI in US that permits a continuous monitoring of the progresses of the two initiatives.
   
• Community-specific expert reports
   
  • Marc Bide: Open Archives and Intellectual Property: incompatible world views?
    (pdf-file, 309 KB)
    This paper discusses the relationship between open archives and Intellectual Property right (IPR). It explains IPR, the issues of copyright and its protection on the network, IPR in metadata and in resources, attitudes of stakeholders in IPR and open archives, and makes some initial recommendations. There is ultimately no conflict between Open Archives and Intellectual Property - but open archives must work within the framework of Intellectual Property law as outlined here.
     
  • George MacKenzie and Göran Kristiansson: How Real Archivists can learn to love the OAI
    A review of the potential for using the Open Archive Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting in conventional archives (pdf-file, 356 KB)
    This paper looks at the potential for using the OAI-PMH as a simple means of disseminating and exchanging archive catalogues. Implementations of OAI are examined, and the report also looks briefly at alternative means archivists are using for exchanging metadata, particularly the Z39.50 protocol. Possible strategies are suggested in which archives would produce OAI compliant records for parts of their descriptions only.
     
  • Muriel Foulonneau with David Dawson: Open Archives Initiative - Protocol for Metadata Harvesting: Practices of the cultural heritage actors
    This report is about the issues raised in the cultural heritage sector by the OAI-PMH, how several people have handled them or set hypothesis to handle them. It gathers a series of lessons learned, issues to take into account and practices to assess about the use of OAI-PMH for cultural resources.
     
• Reviews of technical issues
   
  • Interim review of technical issues (pdf-file, 1921 KB)
    This report is a part of the Technical Validation sub project. It is the first of two reports dealing with the technical issues arising from metadata harvesting interoperating services.
     
  • Final review of technical issues (pdf-file, 3281 KB)
    This report continues and supplement the Interim review of technical issues. It covers three central elements:
    1. exchange, information and demand analysis in direct contact with the community;
    2. creating online information resources;
    3. evaluation of specific aspects.
    Extracts of selected topics are also available at Resources/Technical Validation.
     
• Reviews of organisational issues
   
  • Interim review of organisational issues (pdf-file, 356 KB)
    This is the first of two reports dealing with the organisational issues arising from the open archives approach. Topics covered are the incentives for participation in an exchange-based model for providing information, archiving and metadata sharing services; governance of the OAI, business models, Intellectual Property Right (IPR) and quality assurance.
     
  • Final review of organisational issues (pdf-file, 143 KB)
    This review explores the validity of the open archive approach through a close examination of organisational issues. It describes the approach and the Open Archives Initiative (OAI), and supports European organisations in benefiting from the added value of open archive technology by exploring the incentives for participation in an exchange-based model for providing information, archiving and metadata sharing services. A summary of Intellectual Property Right (IPR) issues related to open archives is included. Other topics covered are governance of the OAI, business models, content management, metadata issues and quality assurance.
     
• Final project report    (pdf-file, 253 KB)
   
  This FinalProject report outlines the progress of the Open Archives Forum project. Achievements of the project include the design and implementation of the OA-Forum website, information databases and public mailing list, a successful workshop series and the participation of project partners in a number of other dissemination and concertation activities. Deliverables in the form of reports were also completed, including some substantial publicly available reviews and reports.