(July 16, 2015) On July 9 and 10, three major regional open access repository networks and aggregators (OpenAire, LA Referencia, and SHARE), along with the Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR) and Center for Open Science (COS) met in Charlottesville, Virginia to discuss synergies and potential areas of collaboration.
Open access repositories are being adopted around the world to support and promote open science, a trend which maximizes our investments in research by making research outputs freely available to the world. Many of these repositories are connected via regional aggregators, which form sustainable, distributed repository networks that provide access to and preservation of the valuable content created through research and scholarship.
However, research is international, with researchers collaborating across regions and continents to solve the world’s most critical problems such as climate change, health, economics, and so on. The aim of this meeting was to ensure that regional repository networks are complementary, more integrated, and working together to create a seamless global network.
The meeting was very productive and revealed that the objectives, technologies and use cases for all three networks are highly aligned and that there is a strong willingness to work together. In particular, a number of specific areas were identified in which the networks commit to collaborate on:
- Regular data exchange: Exchange data and develop agreements around jurisdictional harvesting and aggregation leading to greater coverage and efficiencies across regions.
- Common metadata and vocabularies: Work towards consensus about key metadata elements and common vocabularies to express funders and institutional affiliations, open access status, and project IDs. This will contribute to the COAR-CASRAI work already underway aimed at developing common metadata elements and will support repository managers in better exposing their collections.
- Common technological services: Assess the feasibility of adopting common broker/router technologies and other services.
- Ongoing dialogue: Meet regularly to share approaches and perspectives about technical and strategic challenges.
Over the next several weeks, the groups will develop a more detailed plan for achieving specific outcomes.
A list of meeting participants is available here.
For more information about the meeting, please contact: Kathleen Shearer, Executive Director, COAR: kathleen.shearer@coar-
The announcement is here.
