BrandingSection

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[edit] Branding Repositories and Sets

When a service provider uses metadata from a data provider, they should include information about the data provider which provided the metadata. This may occur at the aggregation or record level. Branding the record or group of records in this way can help clearly indicate to the user where a record came from and potentially add to the trust and confidence in that record (though this is has not been well tested). From the point of view of the data provider, such branding provides an opportunity for marketing and establishment of reputation. While this can be achieved by simply noting the name of the institution, iconic branding may be more effective.

Within the OAI protocol the data provider can provide service providers with iconic information to "brand" its content through specifying a display icon for the content of the repository as a whole or for specific sets. It is a good practice for data providers to include branding information particularly if the service providers they are most interested in providing metadata to makes active use of branding. However, service providers are not required to make use of the branding information and may choose not to.

Branding information can be located:

• in the repository description (within the description element of the Identify verb of the protocol)
• in the set information (within the setDescription element of the ListSets verb)

In both cases the branding information should follow the branding implementation guidelines using the collectionIcon element of the branding schema. The metadataRendering element in the branding schema is not recommended for use except if specified by a service provider.

The collectionIcon element contains five subelements (url, link, title, height, width). Only the url subelement is required, however, it is best practice to include relevant values in all of the subelements.

It is recommended that the icon be 88 pixels wide by 31 pixels as is standard practice within the RSS community. The icon should be used within a data provider's local environment; this will facilitate the 'brand' recognition for users. A data provider may provide both repository- and set-level branding, but should be aware that a service provider may choose one icon over the other; it may be good practice to provide branding at either the set or the repository level, but not both.

Best practices for branding information are still under development. The protocol does not specify the semantics for the use of multiple icons, how a particular icon is selected, or whether branding should be carried forward through re-exposure of metadata.

The following is a branding example from arXiv.org that is found in their Identify response:

    <description>
    <branding xmlns="http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/branding/" 
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" 
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/branding/ 
    http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/branding.xsd">
    <collectionIcon>
    <url>http://arxiv.org/OAI/arXivLogo.png</url>     
    <link>http://arxiv.org/</link>     
    <title>arXiv e-print archive</title>     
    <width>88</width>
    <height>31</height>
    </collectionIcon>
     </branding>
    </description>

This would typically be expressed in in HTML as <a href="http://arxiv.org/"><img src="http://arxiv.org/OAI/arXivLogo.png" alt="arXiv e-print archive" width="88" height="33" /></a>