R e g i s t e r i n g  a s  a  D a t a  P r o v i d e r

Data providers who support the OAI protocol may choose to list their repository in the OAI registry.  The goals of the registry are:

• Provide a publicly accessible list of OAI conformant repositories, making it easy for service providers to discover repositories from which metadata can be harvested.
• Provide a mechanism for data providers to ensure their conformance with the OAI protocol specification.
• Provide a means for the OAI to monitor use of the protocol and plan future activities and strategies.

This page allows you to register your repository by entering your BASE-URL in the text box at the bottom of this page.  Before doing that, please read all of this instruction page so you understand what registration means and the choices you have.

Consequences of Registration
Protocol Testing
    Conformance Testing
    Robustness Testing
Using OAI Identifiers for Metadata Records
Confirmation of Registration
Changing Registration Information

Consequences of Registration

By registering your repository you agree to the following: 

• The OAI will immediately run a set of conformance tests on your repository.  To ensure integrity of the registry, we will only register those repositories that complete these tests.  An email confirming the results of the conformance test will be sent to the address specified in the adminEmail element returned via the Identify protocol request .
• The OAI will periodically retest your repository for conformance.  In the case that your repository fails to complete the tests, we will remove your repository from the registry and send an email with information to help you return to conformance.
• The registry database will store all the information returned via the Identify protocol request:
  • repositoryName: a human readable name for the repository;
  • baseURL: the BASE-URL for making protocol requests to the repository;
  • protocolVersion: the version of the OAI protocol supported by the repository;
  • adminEmail: the e-mail address of the administrator of the repository.
  • additional repository-specific description packages.
• Contents of the registration database are open for public searching and browsing.  There are no plans for restricting access to the registry database.

Protocol Testing

The OAI protocol defines a set of requests and the format of the responses to each of these requests, specified through an XML schema.  A conformant repository must respond to each of the protocol requests with a response that validates with the schema.  Only conformant repositories will be listed in the registry.  A robust repository is not only conformant but rejects mal-formed responses (as defined by the protocol) with an HTTP 400 Status-code.  Robustness is not necessary for registration.  The email you receive confirming your registration will give details on whether your repository is robust.

Conformance Testing

A repository must successfully complete the following tests in order for entry in the registry:

For every protocol request, the repository return a response that:

• is valid XML (the XML successfully passes through an XML parser)
• conforms to the XML schema defined for the response (passes the XSV XML schema validator)

For the ListMetadataFormats request, the repository must:

• return at least one metadata format.
• in the list of metadata formats, return the mandatory oai_dc metadata format with the URL of the OAI-defined XML schema.

For the ListIdentifiers request, the repository must:

• return at least one identifier.

For the GetRecord request, the repository must:

• return a record with metadata in the required oai_dc format, given an identifier returned by the ListIdentifiers request.

Robustness Testing

A well-behaved repository should return a 400 HTTP Status-code in response to the following illegal requests:

• A request with no verb argument.
• A request with a verb argument that does not correspond to any of the OAI protocol requests.
• A request with an illegal resumption token.
• A request with missing or unknown arguments.
• A request with argument values that are illegal (e.g., illegal dates for the from or until arguments).

A well-behaved repository should also return an "empty" response (i.e. one that contains only the required responseDate and requestURL elements) when there is no data to return, for example:

• a ListIdentifiers request with a value to the Set argument that does not correspond to a set defined by the repository.
• a ListRecords request with a date range (from and until arguments) from which there are no records that can be disseminated from the repository.

The registry software will run some tests that exemplify such mal-formed requests and report via email the results of these tests.  Again, your registration will not be rejected if your repository does not catch these exceptions.  Nonetheless, we suggest that you test for such conditions in your OAI protocol handler.

Using OAI Identifiers for Metadata Records

Every metadata record harvested  by the OAI protocol has a unique identifier.  The only restriction for conformance is that this identifier should be a URI that is unique within the respective repository.  Data providers may choose, however, to adopt the OAI identifier scheme whereby their identifiers are globally unique within the oai namespace.  The advantage for repositories of adopting this naming convention is that record identifiers are resolvable via a central OAI resolution service, which will be made available at the http://www.openarchives.org. OAI identifiers, formally defined at http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/oai-identifier.xsd, are the concatenation of three components, separated by a colon (:) delimitter:

• A scheme that must be equal to oai
• A repository identifier, unique within the oai scheme.  The repository identifier is case sensitive and may contain any alphabetic or numeric character (no punctuation characters are permitted). 
• A local identifier that is the unique identifier of a record within a repository.

An example OAI identifier is:

oai:AnArchive:blarg/0002/01

In order to register your intention to use OAI identifiers, you must do the following before you register your repository:

• insert into your response to the Identify request the description package that defines your repository as a user of OAI identifiers.
• Supply as a value to the repositoryIdentifer element in that description package your choice of repository identifer. You may find it helpful to check the left-hand column of the data provider list first, to make sure your choice is available.

Subsequently, when you register your repository, the registry server will note this description package in the process of conformance testing and test the uniqueness of your requested repository identifier in the oai namespace.  The email confirming your registration will indicate whether your repository identifier choice was unique.  If it is unique, then your use of it will be recorded in the registry and you may create record identifiers using that repository identifier.  If it is not unique, the email will say so. You may then choose another repository identifier and resubmit your registration.

Note: registration of an OAI identifier scheme does not commit you to using those types of identifiers for all of your records.  It only reserves the repository identifier for your use if you wish.

Note: at this time a repository may only register one repository identifier.

Confirmation of Registration

Shortly after registration (usually within 24 hours) you will receive an email showing the results of the conformance testing and (if applicable) your choice of repository identifier.

Changing Registration Information

In order to change your registration information you should simply re-register.  Some instances in which you might want to change your registration information are:

• change of administrator e-mail address
• adoption of the OAI identifier scheme.

Note: a repository may not change its repository identifer.

Questions: openarchives@openarchives.org

Last Modified: 2002-04-04