The NISO IOTA Working Group is finished with its work. Please read our final reports:
http://www.niso.org/workrooms/openurlquality
Thank you for your support.
Adam Chandler
Cornell University Library
OpenURL Quality
Official blog of the NISO Improving OpenURLs Through Analytics (IOTA) Working Group
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
NISO Publishes Recommended Practice and Technical Report on Improving OpenURLs Through Analytics
The
National Information Standards Organization (NISO) announces the publication of
a new recommended practice, Improving OpenURLs Through Analytics (IOTA):
Recommendations for Link Resolver Providers (NISO RP-21-2013). These
recommendations are the result of a three-year study performed by the NISO IOTA
Working Group in which millions of OpenURLs were analyzed and a Completeness
Index was developed as a means of quantifying OpenURL quality. By applying this
Completeness Index to their OpenURL data and following the recommendations,
providers of link resolvers can monitor the quality of their OpenURLs and work
with content providers to improve the provided metadata—ultimately resulting in
a higher success rate for end users. The project is summarized in a technical
report, IOTA Working Group Summary of Activities
and Outcomes (NISO TR-05-2013), which was
published along with the recommended practice.
“OpenURLs
are context-sensitive URLs widely used by publishers and libraries to allow end
users to connect to the full-text of e-resources discovered during a search,”
explains Aron Wolf, Data Program Analyst with Serials Solutions and member of
the IOTA Working Group. “To ensure that the user accesses the most appropriate
copy of a resource (one that is preferably free to the user due to a
subscription through the user’s library), the OpenURL link connects to a link
resolver knowledgebase. The metadata embedded within the OpenURL is compared
through the link resolver with what is held in or licensed through the library
and the end user is then presented with the available full-text access options.
At a typical academic library, thousands of OpenURL requests are initiated by
patrons each week. The problem is that too often these links do not work as
expected because the metadata in the OpenURL is incorrect or incomplete,
leaving users unable to access the resources they need.”
“Through
our analysis, the IOTA Working Group found that there was a pattern to the failures
in OpenURLs,” states Adam Chandler, Electronic Resources User Experience
Librarian at Cornell University Library and Chair of the IOTA Working Group.
“The Completeness Index was developed as a method of predicting the success of
OpenURLs from a given provider by examining the data elements that provider
includes in the OpenURLs from its site. This metric can serve as a tool to help
determine which content providers are more likely to cause linking problems due
to missing data elements in their OpenURLs and can identify exactly what the
problems are. The Recommended Practice explains how to implement the measures
so that problems can be clearly identified and steps taken with the content
providers to improve the quality of the metadata.”
“The
IOTA Recommended Practice is a perfect complement to the NISO/UKSG KBART
Recommended Practice (NISO RP-9-2010),” states Todd Carpenter, NISO’s Executive
Director. “While KBART recommends how to improve the data within the link
resolver knowledgebase, IOTA is focused on the metadata passed in the OpenURL
itself. Together, these recommendations can ensure that OpenURLs will
consistently provide the results that libraries, publishers, and end users have
come to expect from this technology.”
The
IOTA Recommended Practice and Technical Report are both available for free
download from the IOTA Working Group’s page on the NISO website at: www.niso.org/workrooms/openurlquality.
Friday, October 21, 2011
Migration to new parser, db structure, UI done
Jim Wismer and I have finished migrating to the new parser, database structure (which now includes ‘article’, ‘book’, and ‘other’ categories), and user interface.
In the course of integrating the new article completeness index, I noticed some places where I could reduce some of the complexity in the UI; I believe the new version it is easier yet more powerful.
Please try it out if you have a chance. If you find bugs let me know.
http://openurlquality.niso.org/select.php
Thanks,
Adam
In the course of integrating the new article completeness index, I noticed some places where I could reduce some of the complexity in the UI; I believe the new version it is easier yet more powerful.
Please try it out if you have a chance. If you find bugs let me know.
http://openurlquality.niso.org/select.php
Thanks,
Adam
Sunday, June 12, 2011
EDINA: OpenURL + open data = interesting possibilities
EDINA have released a fascinating dataset derived from their OpenURL Router service. The data has been made available under an ODC-PDDL licence with BY-SA community norms which allows it to be reused by anyone with an interest in the data. [More from JISC]
IOTA @ NASIG 2011: presentation posted on Slideshare
Location: Hilton St. Louis at the Ballpark, St. Louis, MO
Date: Saturday, June 4, 2011, 10:30am to 12pm
Saturday, May 21, 2011
IOTA Preprint: 2010 Charleston Conference Proceedings
Rafal Kasprowski and Susan Marcin. "NISO’s IOTA Working Group: Creating an Index for Measuring the Quality of OpenURL Links". 2010 Charleston Conference Proceedings. Preprint (2,600 words).
Saturday, April 30, 2011
IOTA Presentation @ UKSG Conference, April 4-6, 2011
As reported earlier, IOTA presented on its OpenURL quality initiative at the 2011 UKSG Conference. The presentation is available online on Slideshare.
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