On behalf of the Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL), the Center for Research Libraries conducted a preservation audit of the Scholars Portal repository as a repository of journal content. The audit took place between January 15, 2012 and July 15, 2012. Based on the audit findings, CRL hereby certifies that the Scholars Portal journal repository is a trustworthy digital repository for e-journal content.

While Scholars Portal maintains a wide variety of types of digital content, including still and moving images, and audio, geospatial and statistical information, the CRL audit focused on the repository’s ability to manage licensed electronic journal titles, issues and articles.  The audit’s purpose was to determine whether that content is preserved by Scholars Portal in a way that meets the expectations of the OCUL community and conforms to accepted criteria for trusted digital repositories.   

CRL’s analysis was guided by the criteria included in the Trustworthy Repositories Audit and Certification (TRAC) checklist, and other metrics developed on the basis of CRL analyses of digital repositories.  CRL’s assessment involved a review of information provided by Scholars Portal, documentation and information available independently from open and third-party sources, and a site visit by CRL audit personnel, Marie Waltz and James Jacobs, to the University of Toronto on April 17-18, 2012.

CRL’s Certification Advisory Panel (CAP) reviewed all of the evidence provided.  On the basis of this evidence, the Panel concluded that the practices and services described in Scholars Portal’s public communications and published documentation are generally sound, and appropriate to both the journal content being archived and the needs of the stakeholder community.  Moreover, the Panel expects that in the future Scholars Portal will continue to be able to deliver journal content that is understandable and usable by its specified user communities.

CRL assessed the Scholars Portal e-journals database repository on each of the three categories of criteria specified in TRAC and has assigned a level of certification for each. The numeric rating (below) is based on a scale of 1 through 5, with 5 being the highest level, and 1 being the minimum certifiable level.

The basis of these ratings is found in Section B. Detailed Audit Findings.