Interoperability Protocol

Open infrastructure · Metadata exchange · Machine-to-machine communication

Interoperability Protocol

JLA Ediciones applies technical, semantic and organisational measures so that the metadata of its books and chapters can be discovered, harvested, exchanged, cited, migrated and preserved across repositories, library catalogues, scholarly indexes and other research-information services.

OAI-PMH 2.0 Dublin Core DOI · ISBN · ORCID UTF-8 · XML · HTTPS Open metadata

Core principle: interoperability is not limited to making records technically accessible. It requires compatible protocols, unambiguous metadata, persistent identifiers, documented governance and regular conformance testing. The objective is meaningful exchange between people and machines without erasing the identity, context or rights of each publication.

01 · Purpose and scope

Resources covered by this protocol

This protocol applies to scholarly books, research monographs, edited volumes, chapters, series and other digital publishing objects released through the JLA Ediciones instance of Open Monograph Press (OMP). It governs public descriptive metadata and does not authorise the harvesting of confidential submissions, peer-review files, contracts, personal account data or unpublished editorial correspondence.

JLA Ediciones acts as a data provider by exposing public metadata. Harvesters, repositories, indexes and discovery services act as service providers when they collect those records to create search, preservation, bibliometric or other value-added services.

02 · Interoperability architecture

Four complementary layers

Technical HTTPS transport, OAI-PMH requests, XML responses, UTF-8 encoding and stable public URLs.
Syntactic Consistent XML structure, metadata schemas, namespaces, controlled date formats and repeatable fields.
Semantic Shared meanings through Dublin Core, persistent identifiers, language codes, rights URIs and explicit relations.
Organisational Defined responsibilities, quality controls, update procedures, incident handling and preservation commitments.

03 · OAI-PMH service

Metadata harvesting endpoint

The OMP installation provides the publication-level base route shown below. The public service must return a valid OAI-PMH 2.0 XML response before the endpoint is announced as operational to external harvesters.

OAI-PMH 2.0 defines six request verbs. JLA Ediciones will maintain and test the responses required by the protocol:

Verb Function Public test
Identify Describes the repository, protocol version, administrator contact, datestamp range and harvesting granularity. Run test
ListMetadataFormats Returns every metadata format actually enabled by the repository. Run test
ListSets Lists the sets or groupings exposed by OMP, where set hierarchy is supported. Run test
ListIdentifiers Returns record headers for the selected metadata format and optional date or set filters. Run test
ListRecords Returns metadata records and supports incremental harvesting and resumption tokens where required. Run test
GetRecord Returns one record using a valid OAI identifier and metadata prefix. Requires a repository identifier.

Operational declaration: the authoritative status of the service and its supported formats is determined by successful live responses to Identify and ListMetadataFormats. A web page describing the protocol does not replace endpoint validation.

04 · Metadata formats and encoding

Machine-readable exchange

  • Minimum exchange format: unqualified Dublin Core through the oai_dc metadata prefix.
  • Additional formats: only formats returned by the live ListMetadataFormats response may be declared as supported. MARC, MARC21 or RFC 1807 must not be advertised merely because another OJS/OMP installation exposes them.
  • Serialisation: well-formed XML using declared namespaces and schemas.
  • Character encoding: UTF-8, preserving diacritics, multilingual titles, abstracts and names.
  • Transport: HTTPS, without authentication barriers for public harvesting requests.

05 · JLA metadata application profile

Minimum descriptive requirements

Every published object must contain sufficient metadata to be identified and understood outside OMP. The following mapping establishes the expected minimum; actual OAI-PMH output is governed by the enabled OMP crosswalk.

Metadata Dublin Core mapping JLA requirement
Title and subtitle dc:title Mandatory; preserve the publication language and translated titles where available.
Authors, editors and contributors dc:creator / dc:contributor Mandatory as applicable; maintain consistent name forms and ORCID identifiers.
Abstract or description dc:description Mandatory for scholarly books and chapters; multilingual values encouraged.
Keywords and subjects dc:subject Mandatory; use precise terms and controlled vocabularies where available.
Publisher dc:publisher Record JLA Ediciones consistently.
Publication date dc:date Use ISO 8601-compatible dates.
Resource type dc:type Distinguish book, edited volume, chapter and other object types.
Language dc:language Use standard language tags or codes consistently.
DOI, ISBN and canonical URL dc:identifier Mandatory as applicable; express DOI as a resolvable HTTPS URI.
Book–chapter relation dc:relation Link every chapter to its host book and avoid conflating distinct entities.
Licence and access rights dc:rights Include the full licence name and a resolvable licence URI.

06 · Identity and relationships

Persistent identifiers and record granularity

  • Each book receives an ISBN appropriate to its format and a DOI registered for the book-level object.
  • In edited volumes, each chapter receives its own DOI and metadata record, linked explicitly to the DOI and ISBN of the host book.
  • Authors and editors are encouraged to provide a verified ORCID iD; the identifier must remain associated with the correct person and contribution.
  • Canonical URLs must use HTTPS and must not be replaced by temporary session, search or administrative URLs.
  • Conceptually distinct resources must have distinct descriptions. A book, a chapter, an edition and a digital file are related objects, not interchangeable records.

07 · Metadata openness and reuse

Harvesting conditions

Public bibliographic metadata may be harvested, indexed, cached, transformed and redistributed for scholarly discovery, library services, preservation and research assessment, subject to attribution, data quality and applicable rights. Public metadata must not be used to reconstruct confidential editorial information or to profile authors, reviewers or readers in ways incompatible with JLA Ediciones' privacy policy.

Where technically possible, bibliographic references and citation metadata will be deposited in structured, separable and openly reusable form, consistent with the Initiative for Open Citations. The licence governing the full text remains distinct from the terms governing public metadata.

08 · Migration, replication and preservation

Continuity beyond a single platform

Following the repository-interoperability approach promoted by the Research Data Alliance, JLA Ediciones treats machine-to-machine communication, migration and replication as central use cases. Metadata exports, database backups and publication files must be maintained in formats that permit controlled recovery or transfer to another compatible system.

Preservation procedures will maintain the association between files, metadata, versions and persistent identifiers. A platform migration must not silently alter DOIs, publication dates, authorship, licences or citation relationships. Where a record is corrected, withdrawn or replaced, its status must be communicated transparently without erasing the scholarly record.

09 · Security and responsible operation

Availability without loss of control

Interoperability depends on coordinated protocols rather than unrestricted system access. The public OAI-PMH interface is separated from administrative functions and confidential editorial records. HTTPS, software updates, role-based access, backups, logging and reasonable request controls support service integrity and availability.

Harvesters should identify themselves responsibly, respect resumption tokens and incremental-harvesting parameters, avoid excessive request rates and preserve provenance. JLA Ediciones may apply proportionate technical controls to abusive traffic while maintaining standards-compliant access for legitimate harvesting.

10 · Quality assurance

Validation and monitoring cycle

1 · DescribeComplete and normalise metadata before publication.
2 · ExposePublish records through the live OAI-PMH endpoint.
3 · ValidateTest XML, verbs, formats, identifiers and sample records.
4 · MonitorReview availability, harvesting errors and metadata drift.

Checks will be performed after platform upgrades, domain or routing changes, metadata-plugin changes and at scheduled intervals. At minimum, testing must cover Identify, ListMetadataFormats, ListIdentifiers, ListRecords, XML validity, DOI resolution, multilingual characters, rights URIs and book–chapter relationships.

11 · Governance and incident management

Responsibilities

  • Editorial team: completeness, accuracy, multilingual consistency, contributor identity and rights information.
  • Production team: DOI, ISBN, publication relations, canonical links and version integrity.
  • Platform administration: endpoint availability, protocol conformance, security, backups, upgrades and error logs.
  • External harvesters: responsible use, provenance retention, reasonable request rates and correction of material errors reported by JLA Ediciones.

Interoperability errors may be reported to editorial@jlacolectivo.com. Reports should include the request URL, date and time, response code and a concise description of the issue, without including passwords or confidential data.

Proposed version: 1.0

Last updated: 01 june 2026

Institutional resolution: Resolución JLA-ED-CCI-2026-004.