Organisational evaluation
Aims of organisational evaluation within the Open Archives Forum project
- To recommend sustainable business models for metadata sharing,
publishing and archiving, building upon implementation experience
- To explore the incentives for organisations and individuals to
participate in an exchange based model for providing information,
archiving and metadata sharing services.
- To investigate issues of intellectual copyright and terms and
conditions of use.
- To establish the sustainability of the governance model of the OAI.
- To ensure European organisations benefit from the added value of open
archive technology.
Review from the viewpoint of the enduser
We reviewed the potential business models for metadata sharing, publishing
and archiving, and explored the added value that the open archives model might
offer in these contexts. It considered:
- the impact of OAI from the viewpoint of the end user and the benefits
to the learner, researcher and citizen arising from European
organisations participating in the OAI approach. (e.g. optimised domain
searching, access to 'hidden' documents, changes to publishing paradigm)
- the added value of different user interfaces to the services arising
e.g. OAI portal, mix of OAI and other services, integration of document
delivery
- the benefits to the end user of surfacing European documents by means
of the OAI approach, and which content types would be of particular
value to the end-user.
Understanding of incentives for participation in open archives and
recommendations for sustainable business models
We offered different scenarios for the future growth of OAI in Europe. We
undertook a risk analysis to identify areas where action could be taken
to ensure sustainability. This exercise identified which organisations and
services will gain value from pursuing OAI approach.
Review of the sustainability of the governance model of the OAI
We considered the governance of the OAI itself and the funding model on
which it relies. We considered implications for the sustainability of the
open archive approach in Europe and considered any changes that might be
recommended.
Awareness of IPR and quality issues in the open archives context
We reviewed issues arising from Intellectual Property Rights and terms and
conditions of use relating to harvested metadata and 'full-text' document storage
and delivery. We reviewed issues related to quality assurance, within an
OAI based system (e.g., how is integrity of data guaranteed? Who is responsible
for the quality of the service to the end-user?).
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