FAIR Standards
standards
These standards were published in 2016 by Mark Wilkinson in the journal Scientific Data1 and are considered the standard for scientific data assets and products. They can also be referred to as the FAIR Principles and are applied to data, metadata, and documentation.
FAIR stands for Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable. These standards are intended for both humans and machines and apply to both human-readable and machine-readable files.
Findable
- (Meta)data are assigned globally unique and persistent identifiers
- Data are described with rich metadata
- Metadata clearly and explicitly include the identifier of the data they describe
- (Meta)data are registered or indexed in a searchable resource
Accessible
- (Meta)data are retrievable by their identifier using a standardized communication protocol
- The protocol is open, free and universally implementable
- The protocol allows for an authentication and authorisation where necessary
- Metadata should be accessible even when the data is no longer available
Interoperable
- (Meta)data use a formal, accessible, shared, and broadly applicable language for knowledge representation
- (Meta)data use vocabularies that follow the FAIR principles
- (Meta)data include qualified references to other (meta)data
Reusable
- (Meta)data are richly described with a plurality of accurate and relevant attributes
- (Meta)data are released with a clear and accessible data usage license
- (Meta)data are associated with detailed provenance
- (Meta)data meet domain-relevant community standards