Within the last decade, the concept of enhanced publications has become more and

more prominent. It promises the prospect of more comprehensive communication

among scientists. By using electronic publication infrastructures, scientists can

provide their colleagues with online access to their published manuscripts - along

with various kinds of associated materials.

Among the latter we find research data, visualizations or instructive materials.

Ideally, those enhanced publications provide more complete research results,

thoroughly improve accessibility and facilitate the verification and re-use of

scientific information.

A website presenting the publication and all its associated materials as hyperlinks

seems to be appropriate and adequate from a human's point of view.

Mere technology and machines cannot interpret information given in a web page the

same way human scientists do. For example, search engines cannot distinguish

between raw data and an instructive video that is to be found at the end of a

conventional hyperlink without additional semantic information. Hence, in order to

give scientists the most sufficient and easy access to the information provided by

these new forms of publications, the automated processing of enhanced publications

becomes an essential desideratum. New mechanisms are required allowing software

systems to interpret inherent relations.

Expressing the relations within all parts of an enhanced publication is a strong

requirement. Descriptive and technical metadata are common tools that provide this

data to information systems. The OAI-ORE standard provides a useful framework to

describe relations and manage the content of enhanced publications. However,

practical implementations within existing infrastructures are not well established

yet. This is why practical approaches are addressed by the eco4r project.