diff --git a/metadig/checks.py b/metadig/checks.py
index b34094b..512a56c 100644
--- a/metadig/checks.py
+++ b/metadig/checks.py
@@ -10,7 +10,19 @@ def getType(object):
         
 def isResolvable(url):
 # First parse the url for a protocol, host port and path
-
+    """Function that checks if a url is resolvable
+    
+    The function first checks if the url uses HTTP protocols, which is
+    currently the only protocol supported.
+    
+    Args:
+        url - the url to check for resolvability
+    
+    Returns:
+        list: the first element is either True or False (i.e. is/is not resolvable)
+              the second element is a status message, describing success or an error message.
+    
+    """
     #url = 'https://cn.dataone.org/cn/v2/resolve/urn:uuid:7098ba54-ca6f-4e35-beb3-718bd0fe58a8'
     urlComps = urlparse(url)
     location = urlComps.netloc
@@ -55,44 +67,6 @@ def isResolvable(url):
     else:
         return (False, "Successfully resolved the URL {}".format(url))
 
-        
-def getSystemMetadata(identifier, memberNode):
-    # Get the DataONE system metadata for the given identifier    
-
-    url = 'https://cn.dataone.org/cn/v2/meta/{}'.format(identifier)
-        
-    request = urllib2.Request(url)
-    request.get_method = lambda : 'HEAD'
-    # Python urllib2 strangly throws an error for a http status, and the response object is returned
-    # by the exception code. 
-    try:
-        response = urllib2.urlopen(request)
-    except urllib2.HTTPError as he:
-        # An error was encountered resolving the url, check which one so that we can print 
-        # a more meaningful error message than provided by HTTPError
-        # FYI, HTTP status codes (from FAIR FM_A1.1 https://github.com/FAIRMetrics/Metrics/blob/master/Distributions/FM_A1.1.pdf)
-        if (he.code == 400):
-            return (False, "Unable to resolved URL {}: Bad request".format(url))
-        elif (he.code == 401):
-            return (False, "Unable to resolved URL {}: Unauthorized".format(url))
-        elif (he.code == 404):
-            return (False, "Unable to resolved URL {}: Not Found".format(url))
-        elif (he.code == 500):
-            return (False, "Unable to resolved URL {}: Server Error".format(url))
-        else:
-            return (False, 'Error resolving URL "{}": {} {}'.format(url, he.code, he.headers))
-    except urllib2.URLError as ue:
-        print("URLError.reason", ue.reason)
-        return (False, ue.reason[1])
-    except Exception() as e:
-        print("Exception: ", e)
-        return (False, str(e))
-    
-    if(response.code in set([200, 202, 203, 206, 301, 302, 303])):
-        return (True, "Successfully resolved the URL {}: status {}".format(url, response.code))
-    else:
-        return (False, "Successfully resolved the URL {}".format(url))
-
 # Check if an identifier has a valid, known namespace
 #def isNamespaceValid(identifier):
 #    delimiter = ':'