Technical evaluation
Aims of technical evaluation within the Open Archives Forum project
- To facilitate building an open archives infrastructure within Europe
forming part of an international infrastructure
- To encourage agreement on common solutions to technical issues
- To validate and evaluate the piloting of the OAI specification for
metadata harvesting
Inventory of software tools
The project kept an inventory of software products in use and under
development. It reviewed what software is available from OAI Europe, and what
is coming from elsewhere. The project encouraged European projects to share
software solutions. Close links with the US OAI encouraged exchange of
information. Software, which is available in Europe and the outcome of projects
has been reviewed.
Interoperability issues register
The project provided an overview of how open archive systems can be
integrated with other digital library services. By gathering information from
a variety of projects a high level view of different patterns of services has
been formed. Issues concerning interoperability of protocols, standards and
services has been highlighted and shared within the European Cluster.
OAI Current Implementations Database
The Open Archives Forum web site includes access to a searchable database
giving information about current European open archive implementations. This
supports collaboration and dissemination data and service providers, both EC
funded initiatives and other national initiatives within Europe. The database
includes for each provider details of scope of project, content, collection
development policy, metadata formats, version of OAI implemented, contact names,
tools in use. The project developed the database with a priority on
sustainability and automated input using techniques such as self-registering or
harvesting.
Evaluative review of metadata harvesting pilot
During the OAI metadata harvesting pilot various technologies has been
evaluated including metadata harvesting, whether use of XML provides a robust
model for wide mesh of interoperating services, whether choice of unqualified
Dublin Core gives rich enough semantics to meet end-user requirements. The OAI
metadata-harvesting pilot requires establishment of a system of registration,
resource identifiers and identifier resolution. Issues of an identifier
resolution (for archives) has been discussed and a European resolution service
established.
Formative evaluation report on interoperating services
The project undertook an analytical review of the technical issues arising
in the European context of collaborating thesis and dissertation services,
e-print services and other such interest groups.
Recommendations for open source development environment
A shared software development environment will enable the full potential of
managed funding programmes to be realised. The project encouraged projects to
co-operate by developing software in a recommended open source environment.
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