Repository Interoperability
The lack of a sufficiently flexible, simple and robust exchange specification which is compatible with the Web architecture has hindered interoperability between repository platforms. With publication of the Open Archives Initiative Object Reuse and Exchange (OAI-ORE) 1.0 specification, Fedora Commons plans to add services able to generate ORE resource map serializations derived from Fedora repository contents and accept serializations for exchange of repository content. The design of Fedora's Content Model Architecture was influenced by "lessons learned" during the creation of the OAI-ORE specification which we hope will make Fedora a particularly good platform for ORE-based services. There already have been several prototypes of an ORE serialization services for the Fedora repository. We will be testing interoperability through ORE with DSpace, Microsoft and other collaborators leading to a demonstration at the Open Repositories 2009. We anticipate there will be considerable innovation using ORE with ongoing development of services since we have just begun exploring the possibilities it promises. In particular, we expect to explore enabling discovery and reducing complexity of application development through ORE.