This white paper provides the rationale and describes the high level architecture for an innovative publishing framework that positions publishing functionalities on top of the content managed by a distributed network of repositories.

This document outlines COAR’s vision of positioning repositories as the foundation for a distributed, globally networked infrastructure for scholarly communication, on top of which layers of value added services will be deployed, thereby transforming the system, making it more research-centric, open to and supportive of innovation, while also collectively managed by the scholarly community.

The vision is to position repositories as the foundation for a distributed, globally networked infrastructure for scholarly communication, on top of which layers of value added services will be deployed, thereby transforming the system, making it more research-centric, open to and supportive of innovation, while also collectively managed by the scholarly community.

In the past few years, open access repositories and their associated services have become an important component of the global eresearch infrastructure. Increasingly, repositories are also being integrated with other systems, such as research administrative systems and with research data repositories, with the aim of providing a more integrated and seamless suite of services to...