OA network: An integrative Open Access infrastructure for Germany

Abstract

This article describes concepts, development, and implementation of an overall Open Access infrastructure for Germany. Currently, the joint project Open Access Network is facilitating comprehensive and value-added services built on top of distributed Institutional Repositories. Using the OAI-PMH as the harvesting mechanism, Open Access (OA) Network furnishes an open and extensible architecture to form the technological base for manifold enhanced services. It not only provides a personalized end user platform but also serves as an aggregator node for passing data to other service providers (e.g., DRIVER). Moreover, OA Network provides a testbed for the development of software to implement value-added services. OA Network is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). © 2009 Uwe Müller, Thomas Severiens, Robin Malitz, and Peter Schirmbacher.