Use of DataCite

OpenAIRE has adopted the DataCite Metadata Schema as the basis for harvesting and importing metadata about datasets from data archives.

The core mission of DataCite is to build and maintain a sustainable framework that makes it possible to cite data through the use of persistent identifiers, DOIs.

OpenAIRE shares the goal of the DataCite Metadata Schema - to provide a domain agnostic metadata schema and provide interoperability through a small number of properties - making interoperability possible in the simplest manner possible and as a result keep the technical barriers for implementation as low as possible.

We would like to thank DataCite for their kind support and help making these OpenAIRE Guidelines for Data Archive Managers possible.

What’s different

In this document you will find the needed properties to make your data archive compatible with the OpenAIRE infrastructure. OpenAIRE has adopted the DataCite Metadata Schema v3.1 with some minor adjustments.

Access rights and license information

OpenAIRE uses the access rights to enable a better user experience by declaring the access rights clear and explicit in the portal. Access rights are specified using the 16. Rights (MA) property. Please see example of encoding scheme in the section above.

An example:

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<rightsList>
  <rights rightsURI=”info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess” />
</rightsList>

OpenAIRE further recommends including license information if available:

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<rightsList>
  <rights rightsURI=”info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess” />
  <rights rightsURI=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/”>
    Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
  </rights>
</rightsList>

Funding information

OpenAIRE have a specific use of the 7. Contributor (MA/O) property to identify links to funding steams.

One of OpenAIRE’s main goals is to link research output to (EC) research funding. The following application of the contributor property allows unique and persistent identification of the funder who has funded wholly or partly the dataset described.

The following properties are mandatory when applicable to provide funding information: 7. Contributor (MA/O), 7.1 contributorType (MA/O), 7.2 contributorName (MA/O), 7.3 nameIdentifier (MA/O) and 7.3.1 nameIdentifierScheme (MA/O).

An example for linking a research output to the OpenAIREplus FP7 project:

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 <contributor contributorType="Funder">
   <contributorName>European Commission</contributorName>
     <nameIdentifier nameIdentifierScheme="info">
       info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/FP7/282896
   </nameIdentifier>
 </contributor>

Embargo date information

For OpenAIRE two main types of dates are relevant. When the data were made available, published or uploaded to a formal database, this is the date the data were ‘’Issued’‘.

Sometimes data may be embargoed for a period; this information should be managed by the data provider and expressed by exporting an ‘’Available’’ date to indicate the end of an embargo period and an ‘’Accepted’’ date to indicate the start of an embargo period.

An example:

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<dates>
 <date dateType="Issued">2005-04-05</date>
</dates>

An embargo example:

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<dates>
 <date dateType="Accepted">2011-12-01</date>
 <date dateType="Available">2012-12-01</date>
</dates>