Definitions for "Open Archives Initiative"
An initiative established to promote and develop interoperability standards. See: Open Archives Initiative Web site
The Open Archives Initiative (OAI) is an attempt to build a "low-barrier interoperability framework" for archives with digital materials. Initially, the initiative has been involved in the development of a technological framework and interoperability standards specifically for enhancing access to e-print archives, in order to increase the availability of scholarly communication. The developed technology and standards, though, are applicable in a much broader domain than scholarly publishing alone. The OAI technical infrastructure, specified in the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH), currently in version 2.0, defines a mechanism for data providers to expose their metadata. This protocol mandates that individual archives map their metadata to the Dublin Core, a simple and common metadata set for this purpose. See also: Dublin Core
An intiative with the goal of enabling access to Web-accessible material through interoperable repositories for metadata sharing, publishing and archiving.