Open access repositories are evolving in terms of the roles they play and the attributes they aim to express in their records. Users want to know about additional metadata elements used for describing repository items, such as open access status, research funder, institutional affiliation, and so on. Given the truly international and collaborative nature of research, repositories must be connected and aligned around policy and practices, and standard controlled vocabularies are an extremely important aspect of this alignment. Through an active, international Editorial Board, COAR has begun to develop a series of controlled vocabularies for open access repositories.
The aim of this work is to build broad international consensus around vocabulary items for open access repositories. The Editorial Board has reviewed existing regional and topical metadata schemas including info:eu-repo (and OpenAIRE Guidelines), NISO Access and License Indicators, RIOXX, CERIF Semantic Vocabulary, CASRAI Dictionary and others. For each vocabulary element, a definition is provided, and the item has been translated into several languages that will be connected via linked data principles.
As a first step, the Editorial Board is making the first draft version controlled vocabulary, resource type, available for comment by the broader community. COAR invites feedback on the definition and the vocabulary terms that are provided in English and several other language (Catalan, Chinese, French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, German, and Russian). All comments can be posted from the COAR website for consideration. The period for input will be two months from August 1 to October 1, 2015.
In the coming months the editorial board will be working on other vocabularies that will also be made available to the community for comment. This work contributes to COAR's broader objective to develop and maintain a set of international controlled vocabularies for open access repositories and ensure they are adopted widely.
The Resource Type Vocabulary Draft v.1.0 (July 2015) is available to read and for comment here.
