Portico is compliant with TRAC criterion B1.2 (“Repository clearly specifies the information that needs to be associated with digital material at the time of its deposit, i.e., SIP”). However, per the Portico E-Journal Content Type Action Plan, Portico takes on the burden of transforming publisher-supplied content into Submission Information Packages (SIPs): “e-journal content as received from the publisher is batched and processed into Submission Information Packages (SIP) by the Portico ConPrep System.” In addition, Portico has minimal requirements of publishers for metadata (an ISSN and a publication date). CRL believes it would be more effective for Portico to work closely with individual publishers and the publishing and standards communities to develop a standard, consistent SIP for journal articles and a more complete set of metadata that will facilitate uniquely identifying individual journal articles. These steps would be more consistent with OAIS 2.3.2, 3.2.1, and 4.3.1.

Portico may be doing this already to some extent, particularly with regard to the development of the NLM XML standard. We encourage Portico to continue that work, but also suggest that Portico articulate this as a long-term goal and work specifically with individual publishers to provide more consistent, standardized delivery of usable SIPs. This would benefit Portico by making it easier (and therefore less expensive) to ingest content and it would benefit the larger preservation community by furthering standards for content creation that would facilitate preservation.