Explain! FAIR Principles
The FAIR Principles are intended to provide guidelines to improve the findability, accessibility, interoperability and reuse of digital assets. Important is the emphasis on machine-readability. They were first published in Scientific Data in 2016 as “FAIR Guiding Principles for scientific data management and stewardship“.
The FAIR principles
Findable
- F1. (Meta)data are assigned a globally unique and persistent identifier
- F2. Data are described with rich metadata
- F3. Metadata clearly and explicitly include the identifier of the data they describe
- F4. (Meta)data are registered or indexed in a searchable resource
Accessible
- A1. (Meta)data are retrievable by their identifier using a standardised communications protocol
- A1.1. The protocol is open, free, and universally implementable
- A1.2. The protocol allows for an authentication and authorisation procedure, where necessary
- A2. Metadata are accessible, even when the data are no longer available
Interoperable
- I1. (Meta)data use a formal, accessible, shared, and broadly applicable language for knowledge representation
- I2. (Meta)data use vocabularies that follow the FAIR principles
- I3. (Meta)data include qualified references to other (meta)data
Reusable
- R1. Meta(data) are richly described with a plurality of accurate and relevant attributes
- R1.1. Meta(data) are released with clear and accessible data usage license
- R1.2. Meta(data) are associated with detailed provenance
- R1.3. Meta(data) meet domain-relevant community standards