I'm working on a project called TELSTAR (based at the Open University in the UK) which is looking at the integration of resources into an online learning environment (see http://www.open.ac.uk/telstar for the basic project details). The project focuses on the use of References/Citations as the way in which resources are integrated into the teaching material/environment.

We are going to use OpenURL to provide links (where appropriate) from references to full text resources. Clearly for journals, articles, and a number of other formats this is a relatively well understood practice, and implementing this should be relatively straightforward.

However, we also want to use OpenURL even where the reference is to a more straightforward web resource - e.g. a web page such as http://www.bbc.co.uk. This is in order to ensure that links provided in the course material are persistent over time. A brief description of what we perceive to be the problem and the way we are tackling it is available on the project blog at http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/telstar/2009/09/14/managing-link-persistence-with-openurls/ (any comments welcome).

What we are considering is the best way to represent a web page (or similar - pdf etc.) in an OpenURL. It looks like we could do something as simple as:

http://resolver.address/?
&url_ver=Z39.88-2004
&url_ctx_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx
&rft_id=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.co.uk

Is this sufficient (and correct)? Should we consider passing fuller metadata? If the latter should we use the existing KEV DC representation, or should we be looking at defining a new metadata format? Any help would be very welcome.

Thanks,

Owen

Owen Stephens
TELSTAR Project Manager
Library and Learning Resources Centre
The Open University
Walton Hall
Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA

T: +44 (0) 1908 858701
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