OpenAccessFormate

OpenAccessFormate refers to the family of file formats used to store, distribute, and preserve open access scholarly works. The term emphasizes formats that support free access, reuse, and long-term viability, and it is used to describe the repertoire of formats adopted by repositories, publishers, and libraries rather than a single standard.

Core principles of OpenAccessFormate include openness, machine readability, and preservation. Openness ensures content is freely accessible and legally reusable. Machine readability enables automated processing, indexing, and data mining. Preservation focuses on formats designed to withstand technology change and support long-term access, often with explicit metadata and provenance.

Common formats within OpenAccessFormate encompass both content and metadata. Content formats include HTML for web presentation, XML-based formats such as NLM JATS for articles and TEI for humanities, PDFs archived as PDF/A for long-term preservation, and EPUB for portable reading. Lightweight and plain text formats (Markdown, plain text) aid interoperability. Metadata practices often rely on Dublin Core, schema.org in JSON-LD, and other interoperable schemas to describe authors, titles, licensing, and rights. Image and data assets may use PNG or TIFF for figures and CSV or RDF for datasets. Archival bundles frequently employ ZIP or TAR archives to preserve complete publications with accompanying metadata.

Purpose and impact of OpenAccessFormate include improved discoverability, support for text and data mining, and stronger interoperability across repositories, publishers, and libraries. Adoption by funding agencies and institutions promotes reuse, reliable citation, and long-term access. Ongoing challenges involve format obsolescence, licensing clarity, and maintaining consistent metadata and version control, underscoring the need for standardization and active community governance.