http://dlib.org/dlib/january17/burton/01burton.html

The Scholix Framework (SCHOlarly LInk eXchange) is a high level interoperability framework for exchanging information about the links between scholarly literature and data, as well as between datasets. Over the past decade, publishers, data centers, and indexing services have agreed on and implemented numerous bilateral agreements to establish bidirectional links between research data and the scholarly literature. However, because of the considerable differences inherent to these many agreements, there is very limited interoperability between the various solutions. This situation is fueling systemic inefficiencies and limiting the value of these, separated, sets of links. Scholix, a framework proposed by the RDA/WDS Publishing Data Services working group, envisions a universal interlinking service and proposes the technical guidelines of a multi-hub interoperability framework. Hubs are natural collection and aggregation points for data-literature information from their respective communities. Relevant hubs for the communities of data centers, repositories, and journals include DataCite, OpenAIRE, and Crossref, respectively. The framework respects existing community-specific practices while enabling interoperability among the hubs through a common conceptual model, an information model and open exchange protocols. The proposed framework will make research data, and the related literature, easier to find and easier to interpret and reuse, and will provide additional incentives for researchers to share their data.

Keywords: Scholarly Communication, Data Article Interlinking, Interoperability, Open Science, Research Data

2 Scholix Framework

Scholix is an overarching framework for existing technical initiatives that individually address parts of the overall problem that is hindering better linking between data and the literature. Figure 1 presents some of the currently existing technical and social initiatives. The framework proposed by Scholix is a technical solution building from and coordinating current technical initiatives. Though grounded in technical challenges, Scholix is informed by and contributes to social change needed to improve literature-data linking, for instance by enabling the realization of third-party services.

Figure 1: Scholix: An overarching framework for existing technical initiatives
that individually address parts of the overall problem that is hindering better linking between data and the literature.

Scholix is not a product, service, or infrastructure. It is a conceptual framework for interoperability. Scholix maintains an evolving lightweight set of guidelines rather than a normative standard. The framework is developed on consensus from various stakeholder groups in the research data landscape, including data centers, publishers, Crossref, DataCite, OpenAIRE, and many others. It is a result of the RDA/WDS Publishing Data Services working group, with endorsement by ICSU-WDS and pending endorsement by RDA.

Aiming at standardizing the exchange of data-literature link information between scholarly infrastructure providers, Scholix currently documents: (1) a multi-hub vision, (2) a shared conceptual model and information model for scholarly link representation, and (3) recommendations for standards, exchange formats, and protocols.