![OAI resolver](/images/logo/OAI-resolver.png)
An OAI (Open Archives Initiative) identifier is a unique identifier of a metadata record. OAI identifiers are used in the context of repositories using the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata indexing (OAI-PMH), however, the process by which they are assigned can be, in principle, used more broadly elsewhere.
Structure:
In comparison to DOIs, OAI identifiers are registered in a distributed rather than centralised manner and there is therefore no cost for minting them. OAI identifiers are persistent identifiers in repositories that declare their level of support for deleted documents in the deletedRecord element of the Identify response as persistent. CORE recommends repositories to provide this persistent level of support.
There is no strict format for the identifier apart from it having to be a URI, but a good practice is for it to consist of a globally unique prefix identifying the repository and a suffix that is locally unique to a given metadata record in the repository.
The following are examples of OAIs available in CORE
OAI Identifiers are viable PIDs for repositories that can be, as opposed to DOIs, minted in a distributed fashion and cost-free, and which can be resolvable directly to the repository rather than to the publisher.
This approach has the potential to increase the importance of repositories in the process of disseminating knowledge. CORE provides a global OAI Resolver built on top of the CORE research outputs aggregation system.
CORE provides a global resolver for OAI identifiers at
The RESTful call to resolve an OAI is available at:
FAQs
OAI base URL looks similar to http://journaldomain.com/cgi/oai2
or
http://journaldomain.com/oai/request
when homepage URL is
http://journaldomain.com
. CORE cannot index the
journal’s/repository’s content via its webpage URL.
If you are not sure whether your journal/repository has an OAI base
URL, contact our team and we will provide
technical support to you.
A more technical answer for https://support.core.ac.uk
Target audience: repository managers, Technical staff.
An OAI Identifier is a unique identifier which distinguishes items in a repository.
It “unambiguously identifies an
item within a repository; the unique identifier is used in OAI-PMH requests for extracting metadata
from the item”
The Identifier contains 3 parts, split using:
“oai“ : Unique identifier oai. This describes the type of the identifier
“website address”: Where the item is hosted.
“Unique identifier”: An identifier of the object
For example:
oai:eprints.gla.ac.uk:129357
oai:digitalcommons.odu.edu:oaweek-1012
oai:oro.open.ac.uk:75049
oai:dspace.stir.ac.uk:1893/24654
Not all OAI Identifiers look like this, but they are non-standard and their use is discouraged. OAI Identifiers must follow the URI (Uniform Resource Identifier) syntax. For more information about how OAI Identifiers are formed, visit Specification and XML Schema for the OAI Identifier Format.