Technical Glossary

Archiving

All articles published by jvrb are stored in a docbook xml compliant file format for archiving issues.

Docbook xml is an open and future-oriented data format that is not developed by a single company but maintained and updated by an international community. Different representations can be generated from the sourcefile like an html-view. xml is the recommended file format for long time archiving purposes and grants the provision of content over a long period of time.

Open URL

JVRB uses Open URL, a service that provides an automatic forwarding from a reference in a document to the original source in a library.

Any reference contains a weblink in its title that starts an availability check for the corresponding source in selected libraries. The availability check does not depend on the type of the referred source: books, proceedings, articles in a printed journal, tech reports or electronic manuscripts, because different types of sources searchable. References pointing to websites are linked directly. This service is beneficial for the reader who would like to receive detailed information about a specific aspect mentioned in the article quickly. But the use of techniques like Open URL indicate the capabilites of electronic publishing: the connection of related information through web-services produce additional values and future developments in form of new applications are even going to increase this benefit.

ORCID

As author, you can register at orcid.org and receive an ID that ensures that your work can be easily identified and is correctly attributed to your reputation.

The registration is free of charge. ORCID also allows you to link your ID with other services (e.g. Scopus, ResearcherID).

If you already have an ORCID, we are able to add it to the metadata information of your article published in JVRB and ensure that you get credit for your work.

The Journal‘s publication system supports two different persistent digital identifiers to distinguish authors: ORCID and the PND identification number lookup from the German GND-Database are available.

Uniform Resource Names URN

Persistent Identifiers for web resources.

The standard method of referencing resources on the internet is covered by Uniform Resource Locators URLs. These web addresses are unique, but there are not persistent. If a file or document is moved, i.e. into another directory, the reference becomes invalid. To identify a document regardless of its location, persistent, globally unique and standardized identifiers for digital content are necessary. Additionally, an unambigous indentification makes an article citable and distinguishable.

Different approaches have been made to solve the problem of persistent identifiers, one of them is the concept of Uniform Resource Names URN. Die Deutsche Bibliothek, in cooperation with international organizations such as CDNL “Persistent Identifiers” Working Group and CENL Working Group on Network Standards, has developed a stable address scheme. But the permanence of these addresses is only guaranteed if not applied locally. With the Epicur project, Die Deutsche Bibliothek, supported by the German Ministry of Education and Science, wants to create the foundations for a standard for managing and resolving URN addresses. The service offered by Die Deutsche Bibliothek currently resolves URNs in the namespace nbn:de.

Just as an ISB number for printed books the URN clearly identifies digital content of any kind and contains information about the referenced resource. A typical URN looks like: urn:nbn:de:1111-2003121811. Thereby, nbn:de identifies the namespace for a National Bibliography Number in Germany. It is followed by a four digit number that designates the publisher or the document server. The last part indicates the document itself by a unique number, containing a checksum.

Once registered in the database, the URL to a document with an URN is constantly updated in the database and is fetched, if it is requested by a user. A URN is build up hierarchically and is compliant with the RFC 2141 standard.

An URN may be resolved by resolving service, like nbn-resolving.de (for URNs in the nbn namespace), or directly from the browser, if an appropriate plugin is installed. For the Mozilla, Netscape or Firefox browser, a plugin is available from the website www.persistent-identifier.de that enables the user to directly enter the URN to a specific document. The plugin has been developed within the Epicur project and also relies on the nbn namespace.

Alternative solutions for persistent identifiers are the DOI Digital Object Identifiers (the DOI resolving service crossref has been established by a joint project of commercial scientific publishers) and the Persistent Uniform Resource Locators PURL promoted by the Online Computer Library Center in the USA.