Open Science
VOA3R project deliverables
The technical reports the VOA3R project published between 2010 and 2013, grouped by work package, with a note on where copies survive now that the original files are no longer hosted here.
This page records the technical deliverables produced by the VOA3R research project, which used this domain between 2010 and 2013. It exists because this URL is cited in bibliographies and library guides, and those citations deserve a page that actually answers the question they were asking.
The original PDF files are no longer hosted here. They were removed long before the current owner acquired the domain, and this site does not republish them. What follows is a record of what existed, and a note on where copies survive.
For what the project itself was, and the clear statement that this site is not its continuation, see the project archive.
Where surviving copies are
The Internet Archive. The Wayback Machine holds captures of the original site from 2012 onwards, including many of the deliverable documents themselves. Searching the archive for this domain and browsing to the documents or downloads directories is the most reliable route.
Partner repositories. Several partners deposited project outputs in their own institutional repositories, which remain online and indexed. These are findable through the routes described in finding agricultural research.
The scholarly record. Where deliverable content was subsequently developed into conference or journal papers - which happened with much of the metadata and interoperability work - those papers are in the normal literature and are usually open access.
The deliverables, by work package
The project organised its output into numbered work packages. The following list reflects the documents that were published on the original site.
| Reference | Work package theme |
|---|---|
| D2.1, D2.2, D2.3, D2.4 | Requirements, user needs and initial architecture |
| D3.4, D3.5 | Metadata, semantics and repository interoperability |
| D4.1, D4.2, D4.2.2, D4.3.1, D4.3.2 | Platform and federated search services |
| D6.3 | Evaluation and community assessment |
| D6.4 | Final recommendations, May 2013 |
| D7.3.1, D7.3.2 | Dissemination and exploitation |
Alongside these, the project published a risk assessment document, a quality management document, a press release from March 2012, and a series of newsletters issued in partnership with FAO’s agricultural information management programme.
D6.4, the most-cited document
The deliverable that continues to attract citations is D6.4, issued at the end of May 2013. It set out the project’s closing recommendations on opening up access to scientific information, and specifically on how virtual repositories and scholarly online communities could be improved.
Its durability makes sense: it is the only deliverable written to be read outside the consortium. The rest were reports to a funder. That is a general pattern worth noting for anyone producing project documentation - the deliverable written for a real audience is the one that outlives the project.
What the work led to
The technical contribution that outlasted the platform was on metadata interoperability between agricultural repositories - schema matching, metadata quality evaluation, and the practical problem of making repositories with different descriptive conventions searchable together. That problem is still live, and the standards work around it continues under other institutions. Research data management covers the current state of it.
Frequently asked questions
Can I still download the original deliverable PDFs?
Not from this domain. The files were removed years before the current owner acquired it. The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine holds captures of the original site including many of the deliverable documents, and searching the Wayback Machine for voa3r.eu is the most reliable route to them. Several deliverables were also deposited in partner institutions' repositories.
Which deliverable is the one most often cited?
D6.4, the project's final set of recommendations, published in May 2013 under the title concerning the opening up of access to scientific information and the improvement of virtual repositories and online communities. It is the document most frequently linked from bibliographies and educational bookmarking services.
Why does this page exist if the files are gone?
Because bibliographies, library guides and reading lists still cite this URL. A citation that resolves to a page explaining what the document was and where a copy survives is more useful than one that resolves to an error, or to an unrelated commercial page.