Implementation tips
Particular guidance on using FAIRsharing, where appropriate, to implement Checklist elements.
Last updated
Particular guidance on using FAIRsharing, where appropriate, to implement Checklist elements.
Last updated
This section is designed to provide suggested methodologies for implementing certain steps of the Checklist and Flowchart. None of these methods are required, but we feel they may be useful to you as you assess a manuscript.
Note on FAIRsharing: While all of the FAIRsharing records are manually curated, at some point you may find that a resource or its metadata is missing or incorrect. If you need to get in touch with FAIRsharing regarding any curation, either email contact@fairsharing.org with a description of the issue or using the Actions -> ‘Have a suggestion/question?’ item on any record page.
General help on searching is available.
Search using the text box at the top of FAIRsharing.org for the search term suggested within the Implementation Guidance section of the element you are currently assessing.
If the resource (database, standard, or policy) that you are looking for is present within the search results, please open that record in a new tab, as you are likely to want to refer to it more than once during the checks. If it is not present, please get in touch and we will add any in-scope resource.
General help for licences in FAIRsharing is available.
Using the ‘Searching FAIRsharing’ help, find and open the record you are looking for. If the resource is present, continue to the next step. If it is not present, you cannot use this method to review licences and you may exit this process.
Licences are listed partway down the record, if present. Below is an example of the licences listed for PDBe (https://doi.org/10.25504/FAIRsharing.26ek1v). In this record, FAIRsharing is letting you know that all content within PDBe is licensed CC0, with the wwPDB charter also linked for further information. Licences may be missing from a FAIRsharing record either because a) the resource does not provide any licence information, or b) our curators have missed the licence information during the last update to this record. If licence information is missing, please get in touch and we will prioritise its inclusion.
General help for data access conditions in FAIRsharing is available. Note that ‘data’ in this context means any digital object stored within the described repository.
Using the ‘Searching FAIRsharing’ help, find and open the record you are looking for. If the resource is present, continue to the next step. If it is not present, you cannot use this method to review conditions for data access and you may exit this process.
Data access conditions are listed partway down the record, within the ‘Attributes and Conditions’ section. Below is an example of the data access condition for DaSCH (https://doi.org/10.25504/FAIRsharing.095469). As defined in FAIRsharing, the DaSCH record states that the repository is 'partially open' and that data depositors decide which access conditions to apply. Therefore this value confirms to you that any digital object stored within DaSCH needs its availability to be confirmed within its entry in DaSCH.
Another example using the NERC BODC Archive (https://doi.org/10.25504/FAIRsharing.tj9xv0) shows how a repository-wide policy would mean that you can confirm that a single availability level will apply to all data stored within it.
General help for understanding the ‘access for pre-publication review’ field in FAIRsharing is available.
Using the ‘Searching FAIRsharing’ help, find and open the record you are looking for. If the resource is present, continue to the next step. If it is not present, you cannot use this method to review access for pre-publication review and you may exit this process.
Whether or not the data may be accessed for pre-publication review is listed partway down the record, within the ‘Attributes and Conditions’ section. Below is an example of how the data access for pre-publication review is represented using DaSCH (https://doi.org/10.25504/FAIRsharing.095469). Here, the DaSCH record states that the repository supports access to otherwise-closed data for pre-publication review.
The CONP Portal record (https://doi.org/10.25504/FAIRsharing.7qwrhY) states that the repository does not support access for pre-publication review.
General help is available for understanding how subject tags allow FAIRsharing to define the research area in which a repository accepts data.
Using the ‘Searching FAIRsharing’ help, find and open the record you are looking for. If the resource is present, continue to the next step. If it is not present, you cannot use this method to review subject-specific repositories and you may exit this process.
The subject(s) for which a repository accepts data are listed in the ‘General Information’ card at the top of the record. Generalist repositories will have ‘Subject Agnostic’ as at least one of their subjects, or may alternatively include all three top-level subject areas: Natural Sciences, Humanities and Social Science, and Engineering Science. Domain-specific repositories will have subject areas that are more fine grained. You can always browse the FAIRsharing subject hierarchy using the Subject Browser. Below is an example of how subjects look within the DaSCH record (https://doi.org/10.25504/FAIRsharing.095469). As this only includes the Humanities tag, it is a domain-specific repository, albeit one with a reasonably wide scope.
Below is an example with a number of different tags, using GBIF’s record (https://doi.org/10.25504/FAIRsharing.zv11j3). Here, only one top-level tag (‘Natural Science’) is used, and a number of more fine-grained subjects show you the particular areas of interest.
General help is available for understanding how policy records relate to the rest of the FAIRsharing registry. This help section provides guidance on how to understand the relationships a policy may have to standards and databases registered with FAIRsharing. The next few steps will tell you how to find those standards and databases linked to the policy of your choice.
Using your journal or publisher’s name as the search term as instructed in ‘Searching FAIRsharing’, find and open the record you are looking for. If the resource is present, continue to the next step. If it is not present, you cannot use this method to discover standards and databases related to a policy record and you may exit this process.
Next we need to check for those standards and databases that are described in your policy. There are two places to do this, each of which will be covered in the next steps.
General help for data versioning in FAIRsharing is available. Note that ‘data’ in this context means any digital object stored within the described repository.
Using the ‘Searching FAIRsharing’ help, find and open the record you are looking for. If the resource is present, continue to the next step. If it is not present, you cannot use this method to review conditions for data access and you may exit this process.
General help for data preservation policies in FAIRsharing is available. Note that ‘data’ in this context means any digital object stored within the described repository.
Using the ‘Searching FAIRsharing’ help, find and open the database record you are looking for. If the resource is present, continue to the next step. If it is not present, you cannot use this method to review conditions for data access and you may exit this process.
General help is available for understanding how databases are linked to standards and the rest of the FAIRsharing registry. This help section provides guidance on how to understand the relationships a policy may have to standards and databases registered with FAIRsharing. The next few steps will tell you how to find model/formats, a type of standard, to the database of your choice.
Using the database name as the search term as instructed in ‘Searching FAIRsharing’, find and open the record you are looking for. If the resource is present, continue to the next step. If it is not present, you cannot use this method to discover formats related to a database record and you may exit this process.
If you are better at visualisation of relationships, you may wish to view our record graphs rather than the list of relationships. These graphs are dynamic, and allow you to click on the nodes, zoom in and view selected subgraphs. For example, the DaSCH graph (https://fairsharing.org/graph/3311) looks like this:
And the EVA graph (https://fairsharing.org/graph/2155) looks like this:
Does the policy record have any ‘parent’ policies? If not, go on to the next step. If yes, then you will need to check for related standards and databases as described in the next step for each of those parent policies. Any policy recommends both 1) the resources listed directly within the record, and 2) all resources listed in the record's parent policies (see the "extends" relationship). In the example above, the ‘Taylor & Francis - Applied Mathematics in Science and Engineering’ journal policy (https://fairsharing.org/5247) extends the ‘Taylor and Francis - Basic Data Sharing Policy’ (https://doi.org/10.25504/FAIRsharing.0576ec), which in turn extends the top-level ‘Taylor and Francis - Data Sharing Policy’ (https://doi.org/10.25504/FAIRsharing.0576ec). The standards and databases listed within each of these parent policies should be considered as included within your child policy. In this example, all standards and databases listed within both parent policies are also related to the child policy for Applied Mathematics in Science and Engineering. You can learn how to view these related standards and databases for these parent policies by reading the next step.
Check to see if the policy record you are viewing has a list of recommended databases and standards by scrolling down to the ‘Related Content’ tab. In the example above from F1000's policy record at https://doi.org/10.25504/FAIRsharing.nb9zzm, there are 47 related databases and 6 related standards. Any database or standard in this list is present there because it is explicitly listed within the policy document itself.
Data versioning is listed partway down the record, within the ‘Attributes and Conditions’ section. It will either be ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Above is an example of the data versioning for 4TU.ResearchData (https://doi.org/10.25504/FAIRsharing.zcveaz). A ‘yes’ value confirms to you that any digital object stored within 4TU.ResearchData will be versioned.
If a data preservation policy can be found for a database, then it will be listed partway down the record, within the ‘Attributes and Conditions’ section. If no such policy could be found, then it will not be present at all within this section. Above is an example of the data access condition for 4TU.ResearchData (https://doi.org/10.25504/FAIRsharing.zcveaz). Not only does it state that a policy exists, it also provides a URL to where the policy can be found.
Next we need to check for those model/format record types that are described in the database record. Check to see if the database record you are viewing has a list of related standards by scrolling down to the ‘Related Content’ tab. In the above example, DaSCH (https://doi.org/10.25504/FAIRsharing.095469) implements, among others, CCSDS and ISO Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System (https://doi.org/10.25504/FAIRsharing.1d13e7). In this example, EVA (https://doi.org/10.25504/FAIRsharing.6824pv) implements the Variant Call Format, VCF (https://doi.org/10.25504/FAIRsharing.cfzz0h).
