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The purpose of this research is to enable dynamic customization of metadata that describes educational resources in digital repositories.

Users need to describe educational resources in digital repositories according to a user-specific metadata set. As users generally do not have the skills to customize the software application manually, this approach relies on the techniques of model-driven software engineering, which should allow customization of the software application programmatically with no need to develop or order a new software application. An experiment was conducted to evaluate the proposed solution.

A software platform for managing educational resources described by dynamically extendable metadata is proposed. The platform enables the creation of data models that are programmatically transformed to a Web application for the management of educational resources. In this way, users can create their own models of metadata that are relevant in a particular domain.

The solution has been verified by users with technical knowledge. The appropriateness of the model should still be explored for domain experts with little technical knowledge who desire to define new metadata in their domain.

The solution can be used for digital repositories that store diverse educational resources. Each resource could be described using metadata that relates to the domain the resource belongs to.

Digital repositories standardly describe educational resources using some general metadata, which are more focused on the physical characteristics of resources rather than their semantics. The proposed solution introduces custom domain-specific semantics into the description of the resources, which improves their retrieval.

This paper aims to propose a toolset that enables individual digital collections owners to satisfy the requirements of aggregators even in cases where their IT and software infrastructure is limited and does not support them inherently. Managers of repositories/digital collections face the challenge of exposing their data via Open Archives Initiative – Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) to multiple aggregators and conforming to their possibly differing requirements, for example on output metadata schemas and selective harvesting.

The authors developed a software server that is able to wrap existing systems or even metadata records in plain files as OAI-PMH sources. They analysed the functionality of OAI-PMH data providers in a flow of discrete steps and used a software library to modularise the software for these steps so that the whole process can be easily customised to the needs of each pair of OAI-PMH data provider and service provider. The developed server includes a mechanism for the implementation of schema mappings using an XML specification that can be defined by non-IT personnel, for example metadata experts. The server has been applied in various real-life use cases, in particular for providing content to Europeana.

It has been concluded through real-life use cases that it is indeed possible and feasible in practice to expose metadata records of digital collections via OAI-PMH even when the data sources do not support the required protocols and standards. Even advanced OAI-PMH features like selective harvesting can be supported. Mappings between input and output schemas in many practical cases can be implemented entirely or to a large extent as XML specifications by metadata experts instead of software developers.

Exposing data via OAI-PMH to aggregators like Europeana is made feasible/easier for digital collections owners, even when their software infrastructure does not inherently support the required protocols and standards.

The approach is original and applicable in practice to diverse technology environments, effectively addressing the indisputable fact of the heterogeneity of software and systems used to implement digital repositories and collections worldwide.

Good project plans include technical specifications, plans of work, budgets and schedules that are consistent with project goals. Text digitisation presents many variables and many choices, so there is no one‐size‐fits‐all solution to recommend. This article presents a simple‐to‐use questionnaire as a tool for project managers to translate their vision of text digitisation into a series of functional requirements optimised for their collections and users. These requirements can then be used to develop specifications, draft workflows, and select appropriate staff, services and equipment.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss added value in the context of current research information systems (CRISs) based on metadata enrichment.

This discussion paper uses literature review as well as analysis of CRISs specifications to discuss added value possibilities.

Added value of the CRISs is in their integration and interoperability with the same and similar information systems. Since metadata plays key roles in interoperability of information systems, therefore focussing on metadata-related issue can add considerable values to CRISs. Two types of metadata can be distinguished in every CRISs including macro- and micro-metadata. In terms of macro-metadata common European research information format (CERIF) by itself is an added value for CRIS because it draws a complete view of the research landscape including entities and their relations. CERIF metadata structure is designed in such a way that supports micro- and macro-metadata.

There is a lack of literature on adding value to research information systems especially CRIS and particularly how value can be added in CRISs still is an unanswered question. CRIS developers can use this paper as a road map to choose the most valuable strategy for adding value to their systems.

The purpose of this paper is to present a framework for the articulation of relationships between collection-level and item-level metadata as logical inference rules. The framework is intended to allow the systematic generation of relevant propagation rules and to enable the assessment of those rules for particular contexts and the translation of rules into algorithmic processes.

The framework was developed using first order predicate logic. Relationships between collection-level and item-level description are expressed as propagation rules – inference rules where the properties of one entity entail conclusions about another entity in virtue of a particular relationship those individuals bear to each other. Propagation rules for reasoning between the collection and item level are grouped together in the framework according to their logical form as determined by the nature of the propagation action and the attributes involved in the rule.

The primary findings are the analysis of relationships between collection-level and item-level metadata, and the framework of categories of propagation rules. In order to fully develop the framework, the paper includes an analysis of colloquial metadata records and the collection membership relation that provides a general method for the translation of metadata records into formal knowledge representation languages.

The method for formalizing metadata records described in the paper represents significant progress in the application of knowledge representation techniques to problems of metadata creation and management, providing a flexible technique for encoding colloquial metadata as a set of statements in first-order logic. The framework of rules for collection/item metadata relationships has a range of potential applications for the enhancement or metadata systems and vocabularies.

The authors, who jointly serve as the Open Archives Initiative (OAI) executive, reflect on the three‐year history of the OAI. Three years of technical work recently culminated in the release of a stable production version 2 of the OAI Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI‐PMH). This technical product, the work that led up to it, and the process that made it possible have attracted some favor from the digital library and information community. The paper explores a number of factors in the history of the OAI that the authors believe have contributed to this positive response. The factors include focus on a defined problem statement, an operational model in which strong leadership is balanced with solicited participation, a healthy dose of community building and support, and sensible technical decisions.

This paper proposes solutions to problems related to the maintenance and update of already existing e‐learning courseware.

A structured approach in form of a reference model for the re‐engineering of existing educational material is presented. In this context, concepts already established in the area of aspect‐oriented programming are applied to deal with crosscutting concerns in e‐learning material. Finally, a software product line approach is proposed for the creation of new courseware using re‐engineered components.

It turns out that some aspects of the methodology developed for aspect‐oriented programming can also be used to restructure the existing e‐learning material in such a way that maintenance is eased and redundancy is significantly reduced. In addition, software product lines for e‐learning material provide a global framework for coordinating the re‐engineering and reuse of components.

The advantage of the proposed approach is that existing e‐learning standards and systems do not have to be modified or adapted.

Usually, courseware evolves during a longer period of time and its development does not start every time from zero. There is a high incentive for re‐engineering of existing courseware, since it constitutes in many cases the competitive advantage of companies or universities. However, up to now, little attention is paid to the maintenance and the efficient update of e‐learning material which is already there.

This paper aims to automate pre-ingest workflow for preserving digital content, such as records, through middleware that integrates potentially many information systems with potentially several alternative digital preservation services.

This design research approach resulted in a design for model- and component-based software for such workflow. A proof-of-concept prototype was implemented and demonstrated in context of a European research project, ForgetIT.

The study identifies design issues of automated pre-ingest for digital preservation while using middleware as a design choice for this purpose. The resulting model and solution suggest functionalities and interaction patterns based on open interface protocols between the source systems of digital content, middleware and digital preservation services. The resulting workflow automates the tasks of fetching digital objects from the source system with metadata extraction, preservation preparation and transfer to a selected preservation service. The proof-of-concept verified that the suggested model for pre-ingest workflow and the suggested component architecture was technologically implementable. Future research and development needs to include new solutions to support context-aware preservation management with increased support for configuring submission agreements as a basis for dynamic automation of pre-ingest and more automated error handling.

The paper addresses design issues for middleware as a design choice to support automated pre-ingest in digital preservation. The suggested middleware architecture supports many-to-many relationships between the source information systems and digital preservation services through open interface protocols, thus enabling dynamic digital preservation solutions for records management.

This review is a summary of the state‐of‐the‐art for those who have not been intimately dealing with the evolution of digital archives. At the same time this survey will be a useful resource and starting point for archivists, librarians and technicians, who are becoming involved in institutional digitization projects. It presents a brief overview of what is meant by a digital library and a digital archive, and how archival collections can be described. It expresses briefly the different approaches to collections and their descriptions and suggests that a consistent approach to descriptions at collection and item level is an important factor in initiatives which seek to provide integrated access to distributed resources, whether those resources are traditional or digital.