Interoperability and Integration

Support for each of these integration options varies with each repository software platform, but the majority now support integration with the following standards:

• OAI-PMH

• SWORD

• RSS/Atom feeds

• Shibboleth

• LDAP/Active Directory

Interoperability and integration are terms that describe the ways in which repositories work with other systems using common standards and protocols. It is important that each repository interoperates with other systems in order for the institution to reap all of the rewards that come from the sharing of information. Integration refers to the process of setting up your repository to work with other systems, so that data can flow from one system to another. Without common standards, it would be difficult to integrate different systems. Information flows between interoperable systems by using interfaces which provide routes into, and out of, information systems. Sometimes these interfaces are used directly by people (e.g. web user interfaces or RSS feeds) and sometimes they are used by machines (e.g. OAI-PMH and SWORD). Interfaces used by machines are sometimes referred to as m2m (machine-to-machine) interfaces.
There are different ways in which your repository can interoperate with other systems. Three types of integration are:

1. Integration with external systems to get items in to a repository: While repositories are often populated with items that have been submitted using the repository software, there are many cases where the information can be gathered from external systems. A common use-case is to populate the repository from an institutional publications database. Some institutions are investigating ways to populate their repository with learning and teaching materials from their VLE in an effort to make them more accessible both within the institution and sometimes in a more open way with the wider community. Another way of working is to provide depositors with desktop-based smart deposit tools that integrate with their working environment to help capture their work as it is created. The most widely adopted standard for depositing items into a repository is SWORD

2. Integration with systems to get items out of a repository: Once a repository contains a useful corpus of items it can be integrated with other systems that want to use that data. These may be local systems such as institutional search engines or researcher web pages, national systems such as EThOS, or international systems such as Google Scholar or OAIster. One of the most common methods for extracting the structured metadata of the items in repositories is 'harvesting', with the standard protocol being the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH). RSS feeds are another standard mechanism that allow repositories to provide information to other systems; in this case, RSS feed readers.

3. Integration with systems that provide services to a repository: Repository software specialises in storing items and metadata, but can often work more effectively if it makes use of services provided by other systems. One common system that repositories are often configured to work with is local authentication systems such as Shibboleth, LDAP or Active Directory. These services allow the repository to look up usernames, passwords, and user details (name, email, telephone number etc) from a centrally managed system. Other systems that may provide services to a repository could include file format validation (JHOVE), virus scanning of ingested files, or external cloud storage of files