title: Using RMap to Describe Distributed Works as Linked Data Graphs
creators: Karen L. Hanson Mark Donoghue Tim DiLauro Aaron Birkland Sheila Morrissey
abstract: Today's scholarly works can be dynamic, distributed, and complex. They can consist of multiple related components (article, dataset, software, multimedia, webpage, etc.) that are made available asynchronously, assigned a range of identifiers, and stored in different repositories with uneven preservation policies. A lot of progress has been made to simplify the process of sharing the components of these new forms of scholarly output and to improve the methods of preserving diverse formats. As the complexity of a scholarly works grows, however, it becomes unlikely that all of the components will become available at the same time, be accessible through a single repository, or even stay in the same state as they were at the time of publication. In turn, it also becomes more challenging to maintain a comprehensive and current perspective on what the complete work consists of and where all of the components can be found. It is this challenge that makes it valuable to also capture and preserve the map of relationships amongst these distributed resources. The goal of the RMap project was to build a prototype service that can capture and preserve the maps of relationships found amongst these distributed works. The outcomes of the RMap project and its possible applications for preservation are described.