OAI-PMH

The Archives of Biotechnology and Biomedicine fully supports the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH). This interoperability standard allows metadata about our articles to be collected and indexed by a wide range of repositories, libraries, and indexing services. By enabling OAI-PMH, the journal ensures that its published content can be seamlessly integrated into global scholarly communication systems.

What is OAI-PMH?

OAI-PMH is a protocol developed to facilitate the efficient dissemination of metadata records. It allows service providers (such as indexing databases, library catalogues, and institutional repositories) to harvest metadata from data providers (such as journals and archives). The result is an interconnected ecosystem where scholarly content is discoverable across multiple platforms without duplication of effort.

OAI-PMH is particularly important for open-access journals, as it ensures compliance with international standards and enhances discoverability for authors and readers alike.

How We Implement OAI-PMH

The journal operates on an Open Journal Systems (OJS)-compatible platform that automatically generates OAI-PMH compliant metadata. The OAI base URL serves as an access point for harvesters to collect metadata about published articles. Harvested metadata includes article titles, abstracts, author details, keywords, DOIs, and publication dates, formatted in XML following the Dublin Core standard.

By using OAI-PMH, our journal guarantees that articles are indexed not only in commercial databases but also in institutional repositories, regional indexing systems, and disciplinary archives.

Supported Metadata Formats

We provide metadata in formats that maximize interoperability:

• Dublin Core (oai_dc): The default metadata format required by OAI-PMH, including author names, titles, abstracts, and identifiers.
• MARCXML: Metadata structured for library catalogues and archival systems.
• METS and MODS: Enhanced metadata formats supporting complex bibliographic description.
• PKP Native XML: OJS-specific metadata schema ensuring compatibility with PKP services and third-party harvesters.

These formats enable cross-platform harvesting, ensuring that the same metadata can be used by diverse systems without loss of detail or meaning.

Benefits of OAI-PMH for Authors

Authors benefit from OAI-PMH through improved dissemination and increased citation potential. With metadata automatically harvested:

• Articles are discoverable in library search engines, indexing databases, and repositories worldwide.
• Metadata is consistently updated and synchronized across multiple platforms.
• Research visibility is maximized, supporting academic impact and reputation.
• Funders’ requirements for open-access discoverability are fulfilled automatically.

Benefits for Readers and Institutions

For readers, OAI-PMH ensures easier access to reliable and complete metadata records. For institutions, it provides seamless integration with digital library systems, ensuring that users can access articles directly through institutional catalogues and discovery services. OAI-PMH also facilitates systematic archiving, supporting institutional mandates for preservation and compliance.

Compliance and Standards

The journal’s OAI-PMH implementation complies with international metadata and open-access standards, including:

• OAI-PMH Version 2.0 specification.
• Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) standards.
• CrossRef metadata deposit for DOIs.
• OpenAIRE guidelines for European repositories.
• PKP’s metadata interoperability recommendations for OJS journals.

Compliance with these standards guarantees that our content is interoperable with global research infrastructure, from Europe’s OpenAIRE to North America’s PubMed Central and beyond.

Base URL for Harvesting

The journal provides a dedicated OAI-PMH base URL for metadata harvesting. Service providers can use this URL to harvest all published metadata records. Metadata is updated in real time as new articles are published, ensuring synchronization across systems.

Base URL example:
https://www.biotechmedjournal.com/index.php/abb/oai

This endpoint supports all standard OAI-PMH requests, including Identify, ListMetadataFormats, ListRecords, and GetRecord.

Future Development

We are committed to continuous improvement of our metadata practices. Planned initiatives include:

• Integration of ORCID iDs for all authors into metadata records.
• Enhanced metadata for research funder information and grant numbers.
• Expansion of metadata fields to include article-level metrics and altmetrics.
• Participation in global metadata-sharing initiatives such as DataCite and Crossref Event Data.

These improvements will enhance the transparency, traceability, and discoverability of our published content.