OLAC Data Provider Registration

Registering as an OLAC Data Provider

Data providers who support the OLAC protocol are encouraged to list their repository in the OLAC registry.  The goals of the registry are:

• Provide a publicly accessible list of OLAC conformant repositories, making it easy for service providers to discover repositories from which metadata about language-related resources can be harvested.
• Provide a mechanism for data providers to ensure their conformance with the OLAC protocol specification, and evaluate their degree of compliance with OLAC recommended best practices.
• Provide a basis for participating in the governance of OLAC in the role of "participating archive".

This page allows you to register your repository by entering your BASE-URL in the text box at the bottom of this page.  Before doing that, please read all of this instruction page so you understand what registration means.

Consequences of Registration
Confirmation of Registration
Changing Registration Information
Register Your Repository

Consequences of Registration

By registering your repository you agree to the following: 

• OLAC will immediately run a set of conformance tests on your repository.  To ensure integrity of the registry, we will only register those repositories that complete these tests.  An email confirming the results of the conformance test will be sent to the address specified in the adminEmail element returned via the Identify protocol request.
• OLAC will periodically retest your repository for conformance.  In the case that your repository fails to complete the tests, we will remove your repository from the registry and send an email with information to help you return to conformance.
• OLAC will periodically harvest all the metadata from your repository in order to evaluate it for compliance with OLAC's best practice recommendations. A report documenting extent of compliance will be posted for access by the community. Non-compliance to recommended best practice will not be a grounds for removal from the registry
• OLAC will offer members of the end-user community the opportunity to write peer reviews of your archive. When your archive is reviewed, you will be given a chance to write a response that will be posted with the review.
• The registry database will store the information returned via the Identify protocol request. Contents of the registration database are open for public searching and browsing.
• Your repository will be listed on the OLAC server, in both human-readable and machine-readable form. You agree that any potential service provider is authorized to harvest and redistribute metadata from your repository using this base URL.
• Your archive will be considered to be a participating archive and will be allowed to participate in the governance of OLAC as described in the OLAC process document.

Confirmation of Registration

Once a registration request is submitted, a battery of conformance tests is run on the archive software. This process can take several minutes. If it is successful, the registration request is forwarded to the OLAC Coordinators who will check that the archive is relevant to language resources before adding it to the  List of Registered OLAC Archives.

Changing Registration Information

In order to change your registration information you should re-register your repository. Some instances in which you might want to change your registration information are:

• change of administrator e-mail address
• change of the <olac-archive> description.

Note: a repository may not change its repository identifier.

Register Your Repository

Now that you understand all that is involved in registration, you may visit the Data Provider Registration Page.

Please direct any questions about OLAC registration to olac-admin@language-archives.org