Brief summary for the INCF Neuroscience Assembly (https://neuroinformatics.incf.org/2021/program-week-2) of the two sessions run at the RDA Plenary 17th, which FAIRsharing WG has contributed t.

1. Repository features,
looking for convergence
Susanna-Assunta Sansone
ORCiD: 0000-0001-5306-5690 | Twitter: @SusannaASansone
datareadiness.eng.ox.ac.uk
Associate Professor, Information Engineering
Associate Director, Oxford e-Research Centre
INCF Neuroscience Assembly, 26 April 2021
Slides: https://www.slideshare.net/SusannaSansone

2. RDA/Force11 FAIRsharing Registry WG:
Connecting data policies, standards and databases
https://www.rd-alliance.org/group/fairsharing-registry-connecting-data-policies-standards-databases.html

3. Guides consumers to discover, select and use these resources with confidence
Helps producers to make their resources visible, more widely adopted and cited
RDA/Force11 FAIRsharing WG - endorsed outputs
Registry
Recommendations

4. COVID-19 WG
… 530 resources (standards, policies and databases)
https://fairsharing.org/collection/RDACovid19WG

6. https://fairsharing.org/collection/INCFEndorsed
INCF Collection:
your input

7. https://fairsharing.org/collection/INCFEndorsed
INCF Collection:
our added value

8. FAIRsharing - three examples of use

9. RDA/Force11 FAIRsharing WG - community request
Use and adoption has also led to requests (from user communities) to
improve the resource metadata descriptors that stakeholders want to see in
the registry
Current activities are:
1. Map repositories features across initiatives
a. Session by FAIRsharing WG
2. Align data policy from funders and publishers
a. Joint session between Funders IG, Data Policy Standardization IG, and
FAIRsharing WG
Funders IG Policy IG FAIRsharing WG

10. Policy alignment session - motivation and objectives
Objectives
● Examine funder-publisher policy alignment and provide recommendations on how to
improve alignment
Rationale
● Funder and publisher policies influence and motivate data sharing by researchers
● Need for policy alignment in order for research data policies to be maximally
effective
Initial policy areas of focus
● Data availability statements and data deposit requirements

11. Policy alignment - plan
Phase 1 – Research and analysis
● Conduct research into funder-publisher policy alignment
Phase 2 – Recommendations to Improve Policy Alignment
● Engage stakeholders to discuss current state of policy alignment
● Develop recommendations to improve policy alignment iteratively
Phase 3 – Application of the reccomendations
● Disseminate the recommendations, explore approaches pilot projects, and consider
how the recommendations could be used as a basis for continued policy alignment
● The FAIRsharing registry will prototype the policy templates putting them into
action, making these (harmonized) policies discoverable and comparable

12. FAIRsharing registry: policy dashboard
https://fairsharing.org/reco
mmendation/ScientificData

13. https://fairsharing.org/recommendation/WellcomeOpenResearch
FAIRsharing registry: graph of recommended resources

14. FAIRsharing registry: policy comparison

15. FAIRsharing registry: policy comparison using TOP

16. We can (all) do more
By harmonizing the description of the policies,
we make them more discoverable, comparable and
clearer, promoting data availability, deposition and
reuse and guiding researchers to meet these goals

17. Repository feature session - motivation and objectives
There are a number of initiatives that have defined features that:
● help users and other stakeholders understand what functionalities repositories offer,
● help provide criteria to formally certify repositories, based on trustworthiness and FAIRness,
● can be used to define good practices to assist repositories to evaluate and improve their current
operations
○ ELIXIR Indicators (2017); CTS certification (set up as entity in 2018); Publishers features (from 2019); TRUST
principles (2020); COAR guidelines (2020); USA NIH repositories characteristics (2021); Science Europe criteria for
trustworthy repositories (2021)
Scope of this session and relevance to this WG:
● Can we map the landscape of these initiatives? Bring them together, raise awareness,
understand their scope and motivation.
● Can we identify a common set of metadata descriptors? Those that all stakeholders want to
see in FAIRsharing and other registries of repositories.

18. Presentations
● Publisher features - Matt Cannon, Taylor & Francis; and Chris Graf, Wiley
● ELIXIR - Sirarat Sarntivijai, ELIXIR
● Core Trust Seal - Mustapha Mokrane, CoreTrustSeal
● Science Europe - Marie Timmermann, Science Europe
● TRUST - Dawei Lin, NIH
● COAR - Kathleen Shearer, COAR
● NIH - Jerry Sheehan, NIH NLM

19. Publisher view
Repository Features to
Help Researchers
Matt Cannon, Taylor & Francis
Chris Graf, Wiley
Iain Hrynaszkiewicz, Emma Ganley PLOS
Varsha Khodiyar Springer Nature, Research Data
Wei Mun Chan eLife
Nick Everitt,Matthew Cannon Taylor and Francis
Scott Edmunds GigaScience
Molly Cranston, Guillaume Wright, Hollydawn
Murray
F1000Research
Kathryn Sharples, Chris Graf Wiley
Thomas Lemberger EMBO Press
Marina Soares Silva, Ilaria Carnevale, Sarah
Callaghan
Elsevier
Catriona MacCallum Hindawi
Kiera McNeice Cambridge University Press
Adam Leary Oxford University Press
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4683794

20. Motivation and mapping to other efforts
- Publishers have been rolling out data sharing policies in receptive communities for a number of years. A
large part of what is needed is resources and training for researchers on many topics, including DAS, data
citation, and selecting repositories
- Publishers already provide information about how to select repositories to authors - both on webpages and in
response to email queries. However the level of detail and subject coverage is highly varied and not
transparent.

21. ELIXIR CDR
Recognising the Core Data
Resources
https://elixir-europe.org/platforms/data/core-data-resources
Sirarat Sarntivijai
Data and Interoperability
Coordinator, ELIXIR
https://f1000research.com/articles/5-2422/v2

22. Motivation and adoption by the Global Biodata Coalition
https://globalbiodata.org/

23. CoreTrustSeal
view
Mustapha Mokrane,
CoreTrustSeal Board member
Trustworthiness is at the center of the
relationship between a Digital Preservation
Repository and its Designated Community of
users.
A Trustworthy Digital Repository (TDR)
mission is to preserve digital objects for the
long-term and ensure their
understandability and reusability to their
Designated Community.
A certified Trustworthy Digital Repository is
transparently and verifiably assessed.

24. 1. Core Requirements for Trustworthy
Data Repositories (TDRs)
● Define the essential characteristics of TDRs
● Based on the OAIS Reference Model (ISO
14721)
● International and multidisciplinary consensus
● Reviewed every 3 years
2. CoreTrustSeal Certification
● Peer-reviewed self-assessment
● Public evidence based and transparent
● Certifications are valid for 3 years
● International and non-profit community effort
Coverage
68 Humanities & Social Sciences
49 Natural Sciences
29 Life Sciences
16 Engineering Sciences

25. Science Europe
RDM guidance should
always put researchers’
needs first!
Marie Timmermann
Senior Policy Officer, Science Europe
scieur.org/rdm
European association representing the interests of major public research funding
organisations (RFOs) and research performing organisations (RPOs) that foster
excellent, ground-breaking research in Europe.

26. Motivations
Provide direct support to researchers:
Researchers need to be able to identify trustworthy
repositories that respond to the needs of their specific project.
Aligning RPOs’ and RFOs’ support for their researchers:
Science Europe believes in the value of aligned policies
and practices. RPOs and RFOs are the first point of contact for
researchers and best suited to guide their choices of repositories.
Be as inclusive as possible
Take into account existing valuable initiatives
Leave the necessary flexibility to researchers, their organisations and their
funders
Published in January 2019

27. TRUST Principles
for Digital
Repositories
Dr. Dawei Lin, Ph.D.
Division of Allergy, Immunology, and
Transplantation, NIAID, NIH
dawei.lin@nih.gov
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-020-0486-7

28. Relationship between TRUST with other efforts
● Make it easy to understand the importance of Trustworthy Digital
Repositories
● Develop concise and measurable approaches to achieve Trustworthy Digital
Repositories
● NOT to replace any standards, criteria, or best practices
● Provide a high-level starting point for advocating, supporting and
implementing all certifications and assessments

29. NIH view
Jerry Sheehan, NIH NLM

30. Motivations
What was the reason for convening this work/project/certification effort?

31. COAR Community
Framework for Good
Practices in
Repositories
Kathleen Shearer, Executive Director COAR

32. • Willingness to work together
• Identify core characteristics only
• Bring all parties, repositories as well as all relevant registries
• Features (as functionality to adopt) vs best practices (guidelines for improvements)
• We need to distinguish and better define them
• Be very sensitive on how we apply these things
• We have still a long way to go for a good data quality ecosystem
• Repository landscape is evolving so we shouldn’t fix these criteria
• These should reflect researchers need
• Next and onging steps
• Writing a summary this discussion with speakers and interested parties
• Register on the FAIRsharing WG list, to make sure we can engage with you
• Discuss the creation of a new IG or WG to do this work
Repository feature session - conclusion

33. We are all representatives of key parts of the scholarly
community, and we must not forget that we are all here
to support researchers that are ultimately at the centre of
this, it seems imperative that we all move towards a
much more understanding and collaborative approach
We can (all) do more