How FAIR are your data?

FAIR pinciples

We recommend using the FAIR & CARE principles as guidance to maximize the reusability of your data by you, your collaborators, other researchers, and future-you. Your plan should ensure that detailed documentation adopting existing standards is developed during the entire duration of your project (don’t wait until the very end!!) and that this documentation is archived along with your data and code in a publicly accessible data repository will set you up for success.

source: https://www.gida-global.org/care

A good reference to get you started with FAIR principles: https://perma.cc/CT8P-D5MK

and on CARE principles: https://perma.cc/3ZHR-6JAG

FAIR assessment

Findable

1. Does the dataset have any identifiers assigned?

  1. No identifier

  2. Local identifier

  3. Web address (URL)

  4. Globally unique identifier, citable and persistent (e.g. DOI, PURL, ARK or Handle)

2. Is the dataset identifier included in all metadata records/files describing the data?

  1. No

  2. Yes

3. How is the data described with metadata?

  1. The data are not described

  2. Brief title and description

  3. Comprehensive, but in a text-based, non-standard format

  4. Comprehensively using a recognized formal machine-readable metadata schema

4. What type of repository or registry is the metadata record in?

  1. The data are not described in any repository

  2. Local institutional repository

  3. Domain-specific repository

  4. Generalist public repository

  5. Data are in one place but discoverable through several registries

Accessible

5. How accessible is the data

  1. No access to data or metadata

  2. Access to metadata only

  3. Unspecified conditional access, e.g. contact the data custodian

  4. Embargoed access after a specified date

  5. A de-identified / modified subset of the data is publicly accessible

  6. Fully accessible to persons who meet explicitly stated conditions, e.g. ethics approval for

sensitive data

  1. Publicly accessible

6. Is the data available online without requiring specialized protocols or tools once access has been approved?

  1. No access to data

  2. By individual arrangement

  3. File download from online location

  4. Non-standard web service (e.g. OpenAPI, Swagger, Informal API)

  5. Standard web service API (e.g. OGC)

7. Will the metadata record be available even if the data are no longer available?

  1. Unsure

  2. No

  3. Yes

Interoperable

8. What (file) formats is the data available in?

  1. Mostly in a proprietary format

  2. In a structured, open standard, non-machine-readable format

  3. In a structured, open standard, machine-readable format

9. What best describes the types of vocabularies/ontologies/tagging schemas used to define the data elements?

  1. Data elements not described

  2. No standards have been applied in the description of data elements

  3. Standardised vocabularies/ontologies/schemas without global identifiers

  4. Standardised, open and universal, using resolvable global identifiers linking to explanations

10. How is the metadata linked to other data and metadata (to enhance context and clearly indicate relationships)?

  1. There are no links to other metadata

  2. The metadata record includes URI links to related metadata, data and definitions

  3. Metadata is represented in machine-readable format, e.g. in a linked format such as

Resource Description Framework (RDF)

Reusable

11. Which of the following best describes the licence/usage rights attached to the data?

  1. No licence

  2. Non-standard text-based licence

  3. Non-standard machine-readable licence (clearly indicating under what conditions the data

may be reused)

  1. Standard text-based licence

  2. Standard machine-readable licence (e.g. Creative Commons)

12. How much provenance information has been captured to facilitate data reuse?

  1. No provenance information is recorded

  2. Partially recorded

  3. Fully recorded in a text format

  4. Fully recorded in a machine-readable format

Acknowledgements

This evaluation portion of this section has been adapted from the UK Data Service https://ukdataservice.ac.uk/app/uploads/exercise_fairdata.pdftarget=“_blank” and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution CC-BY 4.0 International License.

This work is licensed under CC BY 4.0

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