Piero Attanasio mEDRA: the European DOI agency

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Piero AttanasiomEDRA the European DOI agency
The DOI as a tool for interoperability between
private and public sector Athens, 14 January
2005
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Summary

• Very shortly What the DOI is and what mEDRA is
• The DOI and the public sector some experiences
• When the DOI may help
• (one example and a general model)
• and when may not.

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The DOI is a standard identifier
www.medra.org
mEDRA

• DOI has a similar role for e-content trade like
  the Bar code has in commerce of tangible goods
  it facilitates interoperability between the
  information systems of parties.
• For this reason
• The longer the value chain is,the higher the
  value of DOI

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The DOI Metadata
www.medra.org
mEDRA
The DOI is accompanied by metadata describing the
identified entity

• Metadata schemas are required for different
  Applications Profiles (APs)
• Each schema includes a minimum set of metadata
  (kernel metadata)
• and additional metadata appropriate for the
  application profile. These last includes
  descriptive metadata (related to the genre of
  the resources) and service and administrative
  metadata (related to applications)

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DOI resolution system
www.medra.org
mEDRA
The DOI is supported by a resolution system that
make DOIs actionable in the Internet

• The underlying technology is the Handle System
  produced by CNRI (USA)
• Handle is a resolution system i.e. a tool to
  resolve a number to a source of information
  (typically a URL). In some extent it belongs to
  the n2l (urn to url) tecnologies
• Handle allows multiple resolution i.e. a DOI can
  point to more than one source of information

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Resolution vs Identification
www.medra.org
mEDRA
Remind that what the DOI identifies and what
the DOI resolves to are two different concepts
Resolution 1
Resolution 2
DOI
identification
Resolution 3
Resolution 4
Identified entity
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Resolution vs Identification
www.medra.org
mEDRA
It is also possible that DOI does not resolve to
the identified entity
Resolution 1
DOI
identification
Resolution 2
Resolution 3
Identified entity (e.g. a book)
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What is mEDRA?
www.medra.org

• mEDRA is a company created by AIE and Cineca to
  manage the DOI registration at European level
• It is an example of public (Cineca) private (AIE)
  partnership
• It was born after an eContent project
• It is based in Italy but operates across Europe,
  directly and through forthcoming sub-agencies

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The DOI and the public sector
www.medra.org

• TSO in UK is a registration agency that assigns
  DOIs to PSI
• The Office of Publication of the European Union
  has been recently (July 2004) appointed as DOI-RA
  for publications of EU organisations
• The OECD (through TSO) and the World Bank
  (through Crossref) started registering DOIs on
  their content
• Some national libraries joined the International
  DOI Foundation in last two years

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mEDRA and the public sector
www.medra.org

• The mEDRA early adopters are both in the private
  and in the public sector
• In Italy
• CNIPA (the Italian authority for IT in the public
  sector) participated since the beginning to the
  pilot project
• Some universities are starting DOI registration

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When assigning DOIs to PSI is useful?
www.medra.org

• When the value chain is long and complex
• Therefore
• When the PSI is re-used in a private value chain
• When the PSI should interoperate with private
  sources

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One example the Italian portal of medicine
content
www.medra.org

• It is a project to aggregate content produced in
  Italy for medicine, including
• Journal articles
• Books and electronic monographs
• Learning objects for medical training
• It is open to content produced by private
  publishers and public institutions

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The architecture of the service
www.medra.org
DB Doi e MD
MD quality control
Search interface
Metadata provision
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A model for re-use of PSI
www.medra.org
Public sector
DB Doi e MD
Rights negotiation
Access
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Which could be the role of the DOI?
www.medra.org

• Metadata may include rights information for PSI
• The DOI may guarantee persistence and facilitate
  up-grading of information used in private value
  chain
• Standardisation facilitates the creation of
  portals for content to be negotiated

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When the DOI does not help
www.medra.org

• If the value chain is short
• When the public sector provides directly
  information to citizens
• When there is no need to interoperate with
  private sources
• In such cases any alternative system may work