This document summarizes Rafal Kasprowski's presentation on the NISO Annual Standards Update regarding IOTA (Improving OpenURLs Through Analytics). IOTA aims to improve the quality of OpenURL links by measuring the importance of OpenURL elements and providing recommendations. It developed a recommended practice for link resolver providers and a technical report summarizing its activities. IOTA calculates an OpenURL completeness score based on weighted elements and found a correlation between higher scores and successful linking. Content providers and link resolvers can use IOTA data and recommendations to enhance OpenURL quality.

1. NISO Annual Standards Update
Interoperability and Its Role in Standardization
IOTA
OpenURL Quality Initiative
American Library Association, Annual Meeting,
Chicago, IL, June 30, 2013
Rafal Kasprowski, Electronic Resources Librarian, Rice University, Houston, TX

2. What is IOTA?
• IOTA = Improving OpenURLs Through Analytics
• Objective: Improving the quality of OpenURL links
• Initiative that measures the relative importance of the elements
that make up OpenURL links to help vendors improve their
OpenURL strings so that the maximum number of OpenURL
requests resolve to a correct record.
Elements:
• journal title book title ISBN
• ISSN start page DOI
• volume author PMID
• issue date …

3. Topic: Deliverables published April 2013
Recommended Practice
• NISO RP-21-2013, Improving OpenURLs Through
Analytics (IOTA): Recommendations for Link Resolver
Providers
Technical Report
• NISO TR-05-2013, IOTA Working Group Summary of
Activities and Outcomes

4. OpenURL and Interoperability (1)
• Interoperability: capacity of different products to be compatible
with each other.
• Standard exists for OpenURL syntax: how links should be
constructed.
• Has the OpenURL syntax standard have bearing on the
OpenURL links generated by different vendors?
• Is it possible to apply a quality metric to OpenURL links
across all content providers and link resolvers?
• Global metric would be welcome as reliance on OpenURL
linking continues to increase
• E.g. Use in new web-scale discovery products

5. OpenURL and Interoperability (2)
• Library product landscape is diversified
• Multiple vendors, many products, variety of components
• A-Z vendors operate independently of each other
• in selecting and organizing content providers in knowledge bases
• in developing link resolvers
• Content metadata keeps changing
• Publisher changes, title changes, increasingly greater holdings
available online
• Content providers’ work methods vary
• Apply their own content indexing schemes
• Provide updates to A-Z vendors at different times

6. A, Bernand, et al. "A versatile nanotechnology to connect individual nano-objects for the
fabrication of hybrid single-electron devices." Nanotechnology 21, no. 44 (November 5,
2010): 445201. Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost.
OpenURL: syntax, resolver, linking nodes
http://www.anytarget.com/?issn=0957-4484&volume=21&issue=44&date=20101105
&spage=445201&title=Nanotechnology&atitle=A+versatile+nanotechnology+to+
connect+individual+nano-objects+for+the+ fabrication+of+hybrid+single-
electron+devices.&aulast=A++Bernand
Source Citation (used to populate source OpenURL link)
Target Link (uses OpenURL syntax or other consistent, proprietary URL structure)

7. Which OpenURL Link Works Better?
http://link.resolver1.com/institution?issn=09277765&volume=110&spage=163
&epage=170&title=Colloids+and+Surfaces+B%3a+Biointerfaces&pages=
163-170&atitle=Anti-metastatic+activity+of+biologically+synthesized+gold
+nanoparticles+on+human+fibrosarcoma+cell+line+HT&date=20131080
&aufirst=P.&aulast=Karuppaiya&id=doi:10.1016%2fj.colsurfb.2013.04.037
&sid=contentProviderA
http://link.resolver2.com/institution?genre=article&atitle=Dirty%2c+White+
Candles%3a+Ernest+Hemingway%27s+Encounter+with+the+East.&title=Texas
+Studies+in+Literature+%26+Language&volume=54&issue=4&date=20121201
&aulast=Kenne%2c+Mel&spage=494&sid=contentProviderB

8. IOTA’s Objectives
A. Produce qualitative reports that will help OpenURL
providers quickly compare their OpenURL quality to
that of their peers.
B. Develop community-recognized index for
measuring the quality of OpenURL links generated
by content providers:
 scalable across all OpenURLs and their providers

9. Usefulness of comparing OpenURLs
• Content providers that generate OpenURLs can:
• compare their OpenURLs with other providers;
• make improvements to their OpenURLs.
• Institutions can:
• compare links between OpenURL providers;
• make local adjustments to OpenURL setup.
• Resolver vendors can:
• compare links between OpenURL providers;
• change their link settings for OpenURL providers.

10. OpenURL Reports
25,781,461

11. Report types
• Metric reports
• Viewing how often a particular element or element format
• A. is used across vendors
• B. is used across databases
• Source reports
• Viewing how often a particular (A) vendor or (B) database
• uses the metrics collected in the data logs

12. OpenURL Quality Metric:
Components & Premises
1. Core Elements:
• Any element contained in IOTA's OpenURL reporting system;
• 25M OpenURLs obtained from libraries & content providers.
2. Scoring System:
• Assumption: Correlation exists between
o # of core elements ("OpenURL completeness") &
o ability of OpenURLs to link to specific content.
3. Element Weighting:
• Assigned based on their relative importance:
o spage vs atitle
o issn vs jtitle
o doi/pmid vs date, etc.

13. The premise behind IOTA
• Simple example assuming equal element weights
Element Description Weight This OpenURL
ATitle Article title 1
AuLast Author’s last name 1
Date Date of publication 1
ISSN ISSN 1
Issue Issue number 1
SPage Start page 1
Title Journal Title 1
Volume Volume number 1
TOTAL 8

14. The premise behind IOTA
• Simple example assuming equal element weights
Element Description Weight This OpenURL
ATitle Article title 1
AuLast Author’s last name 1
Date Date of publication 1
ISSN ISSN 1
Issue Issue number 1
SPage Start page 1
Title Journal Title 1
Volume Volume number 1
TOTAL 8
1
1
1
1
1
5
Completeness Score...
(Total for This OpenURL)
Total Weights
5 / 8
= .625

15. Initial Weights
OpenURL data element Description Weight
ATitle Article title 1
AuLast Author’s last name 1
Date Date of publication 5
eISSN Online ISSN 3
ISSN Print ISSN 3
Issue Issue number 3
Jtitle Journal Title 1
Pmid PubMed ID 8
SPage Start page 3
Title Journal Title 1
Volume Volume number 3
DOI Digital Object Identifier 8

16. Initial Weights
OpenURL data element Description Weight
ATitle Article title 1
AuLast Author’s last name 1
Date Date of publication 5
eISSN Online ISSN 3
ISSN Print ISSN 3
Issue Issue number 3
Jtitle Journal Title 1
Pmid PubMed ID 8
SPage Start page 3
Title Journal Title 1
Volume Volume number 3
DOI Digital Object Identifier 8
Initial weights were
somewhat subjective.

17. Initial Weights
OpenURL data element Description Weight
ATitle Article title 1
AuLast Author’s last name 1
Date Date of publication 5
eISSN Online ISSN 3
ISSN Print ISSN 3
Issue Issue number 3
Jtitle Journal Title 1
Pmid PubMed ID 8
SPage Start page 3
Title Journal Title 1
Volume Volume number 3
DOI Digital Object Identifier 8
Most link resolver
knowledge bases can
handle look-ups by either
Print ISSN or Online ISSN
(both are not needed)

18. Initial Weights
OpenURL data element Description Weight
ATitle Article title 1
AuLast Author’s last name 1
Date Date of publication 5
eISSN Online ISSN 3
ISSN Print ISSN 3
Issue Issue number 3
Jtitle Journal Title 1
Pmid PubMed ID 8
SPage Start page 3
Title Journal Title 1
Volume Volume number 3
DOI Digital Object Identifier 8
Most link resolvers will
enhance identifiers like
PubMed ID and DOI;
therefore, having an
identifier is like having all
metadata elements.

19. OpenURL Completeness
Completeness Score
• measure of the “completeness” of a single OpenURL
• sum of element weights found in an OpenURL divided by
the maximum score possible
Completeness Index
• attributed to the content provider as an overall measure
of the completeness of their OpenURLs
• average of Completeness Scores of OpenURLs coming
from that content provider

20. OpenURL linking “success”
• Need to evaluate correlation between completeness score and
ability of OpenURL to generate item-level link.
• The link generated should populate resolver menu.
• Success concept within bounds of OpenURL node (1st node) in
link resolving process.
Matthew Reidsma,
“Rethinking Stock User Interfaces",
http://matthew.reidsrow.com/articles/11
• Initial OpenURL
completeness /
success correlation
not high enough

21. A Statistical Approach to Determining
Element Weights
• Select a set of “perfect” OpenURLs
• include all key data elements and resolve to full text
• Perform step-wise regression
• Test failure rates for each element by removing that element
• Use failure rates as basis for weights
• Use new weights to test for correlation between weights
and success for larger sample

22. Calculated Element Weights
Core Element Failure Percentage* Element Weight**
ATitle 0.74% 1.87
AuLast 0.07% 0.83
Date 0.40% 1.61
ISSN 22.02% 3.34
Issue 20.27% 3.31
SPage 33.27% 3.52
Title 0.61% 1.78
Volume 74.14% 3.87
*Failure Rates from 1,500 OpenURL test sample.
**Element weight calculation: log10 (failure-rate-per-10,000 OpenURLs).
Most important:
Volume, Spage,
ISSN, Issue

23. Validating the Completeness Score
• Use real OpenURLs and a commercial link resolver.
(tested with LinkSource and 360 Link)
• Remove institutional holdings as a limit to resolution
• Process each OpenURL through the link resolver to
determine “Success”
• Score 1 point for finding at least one full text target; 0 for no success
• Calculate the completeness score for each OpenURL
• Look for a statistical correlation between the
completeness score and the success score
• OpenURL completeness / success correlation close to 1
using statistical weights

24. Observations
Testing the same OpenURLs on LinkSource and 360 Link
results in different numbers but consistent trends.
Differences may be attributed to:
• Variations in metadata enhancement techniques
• Strictness in target link rules (e.g. required elements
before link shows – tied to level of forgiveness of target)
• Link syntax used for target

25. Conclusions
• Step-wise regression approach to element weights works
• Completeness Index scores can be correlated to actual
OpenURL “success”
• KB and resolver technology influence results and prevent
a universal set of element weights
The Completeness Index is a mechanism
individual link resolver vendors can use to provide
metrics to help improve their service quality

26. Recommendations and Next Steps
1. Link Resolver Vendors to make use of IOTA Recommended
Practice (NISO RP-21-2013)
2. Content providers to include volume, spage, and issn in
article OpenURLs: critical for success
3. Content providers, link resolver vendors, librarians to use
IOTA data repository to improve OpenURL linking
4. Stakeholders to continue contributing log data to IOTA
repository
5. NISO to assemble working group to investigate standard for
link syntaxes between link resolvers and full-text providers

27. IOTA
Recommended Practice and Technical Reports
• NISO RP-21-2013, Improving OpenURLs Through
Analytics (IOTA): Recommendations for Link Resolver
Providers
• NISO TR-05-2013, IOTA Working Group Summary of
Activities and Outcomes
Websites
• http://www.niso.org/workrooms/openurlquality
• http://www.openurlquality.org/