SUNScholar/Open System
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Introduction
We have no way of accurately predicting what technology will be used in the far future by researchers, therefore the safest bet for preserving today's digital record for the benefit of future researchers, is to use an open system based on open standards and software, basically open technology.
In addition, it would be extremely unwise to trust an external party to archive the most important digital assets of the University and therefore allow another crisis to develop regarding the monopolisation of a critical academic research resource for the financial benefit of a few commercial companies.
Therefore in order to indefinitely preserve the digital research record of the University, a rational University administration would demand that an open and interoperable system be used and that the system be hosted by the University itself.
The preservation of the open digital academic research record BY AND AT University academic libraries is now the responsibility of "modern" digital academic library professionals.
Click on the graphic below to view the original published article.
The internet itself is a perfect example of an open technological system that has survived more than forty years (let's hope is stays open), principally because it was designed and constructed using open standards and software. Using the internet as an example, SUNScholar has been built and is being preserved using the same principles that were applied for the internet.
Click on the graphic below to view the original published article.
Further Reading
- DSpace interoperability guidelines.
- Why we used an Ubuntu server.
- Using an open reference architecture as a system standard.
- Introduction to the self-hosting value proposition.
- How to implement long term repository preservation.
- Building very long term operational and technical support capacity.
- List of available digital repository software.
- Integration with Drupal CMS
References
Below are links to Wikipedia articles detailing some of the principles and standards used.
- https://openstandard.mozilla.org
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_standard
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_software
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interoperability
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Archival_Information_System
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Archives_Initiative
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_specifications
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-system_environment_reference_model
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_standard
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendor_lock-in
