A 10 minute presentation on how we can make repositories FAIR, primarily through storing their metadata on FAIRsharing.org. Presented at the FAIRsFAIR FAIR Semantics & FAIR Repositories pre-RDA P14 meeting in Helsinki, Finland on the 22nd October 2019. FAIRsharing can be used to edit and store metadata on repositories from across the natural sciences, engineering sciences, social sciences and humanities. This metadata is marked-up in schema.org and bioschemas (where relevant) and is given a citable DOI. This metadata can be used to power DMP tools and wizards and can also be used to perform FAIR assessments, such as through the FAIR evaluator or FAIRshake.

1. Making Repositories FAIR
(via metadata in FAIRsharing.org)
Peter McQuilton, PhD
ORCiD: 0000-0003-2687-1982 | Twitter: @Drosophilic
Building the data landscape of the future, FAIRsFAIR workshop, Espoo, Finland, 22nd October 2019
Slides:
https://datareadiness.eng.ox.ac.uk

3. REPOSITORIES,
databases and
knowledgebases
COMMUNITY STANDARDS
DATA POLICIES
by funders, journals
and other organizations
Curated inter-linked
descriptions
informative and educational resource
We guide consumers to discover, select and use these
resources with confidence
We help producers to make their resources more visible,
more widely adopted and cited

4. Providing rich descriptive metadata for
resources

5. Providing rich descriptive metadata for
resources

6. Providing rich descriptive metadata for
resources

7. Highlighting relationships with standards,
databases and data policies

8. Highlighting relationships with standards,
databases and data policies

10. “The interactive browser will allow us to discover which databases and standards
are not currently included in our author guidelines, enabling us to regularly
monitor and refine our policies as appropriate, in support of our mission to help
our authors enhance the reproducibility of their work.”
H. Murray. Publishing Editor, F1000Research

11. Mapping the landscape of badges and
certification

12. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-019-0080-8
Open Access CC-BY
69 authors (adopters, collaborators, users)
representing different stakeholder groups
Analysed the data policies by
journals/publishers, and the standards and
repositories they recommend
Working with journal editors and publishers

13. What have we learned and what are we doing
now?
Discrepancy in recommendations across the data policies
• some repositories are named, but very few standards are
• cautious approach due to the wealth of existing resources
Recommendations are often driven by
• the editor’s familiarity with one or more standards, notably
for journals or publishers focusing on specific disciplines
• the engagement with learned societies and researchers
actively supporting and using certain resources
⮚ Consensus: FAIRsharing plays a key role in helping editors
to discover and recommend appropriate resources, but
repositories and standards could be more FAIR!

14. In scope:
• A shared list of recommended deposition
repositories
Out of scope:
• Become or compete with
• certification systems for repositories, such
as CoreTrustSeal;
• evaluation processes by a community
‘authority’ in a given area, e.g. by ELIXIR
in the life sciences
Collaboration:
Harmonize journals and publishers’ data deposition guidelines
by defining a common set of criteria for repository selection
Document being approved internally by publishers; out before / to be presented at RDA’s 14th Plenary, Helsinki

15. • Findable - use PID schemas, use schema.org
mark-up, add metadata to FAIRsharing
• Accessible - Define level of openness –
access protocol and license clearly in a policy
findable from the homepage
• Interoperable – Use community standards for
reporting, models, formats and terminologies
• Reusable - Licensing, provenance of data,
follow reporting standards – clear policy linked
from homepage
Ways to help make your repository FAIR

16. FAIRsharing enables the FAIR principles
FAIR principles DOI: 10.1038/sdata.2016.18
• Ensures that standards, repositories and policies are:
• Findable - by providing DOIs and marking up metadata
records with schema.org
• Accessible - by identifying their level of openess, license
type and other information in the metadata
• Interoperable – highlighting which repositories implement the
same standards for structuring and exchanging data
• Reusable – through knowing the level of endorsement of a
repository by publisher data policies and the level of
implementation of a standard by repositories encourages
their use rather than reinvention

17. Researchers in academia,
industry, government
Developers and curators of
resources
Journal publishers or
organizations with data policy
Research data facilitators,
librarians, trainers
Learned societies, unions
and associations
Funders and data policy
makers
A flagship output (and a
WG) of the:
Recommended by
funders, e.g.:
Core part of implementation
networks in: