FAIR Principles: Interpretations and Implementation Considerations

• Published in: Data intelligence Vol. 2; no. 1-2; pp. 10 - 29
• Main Authors: Jacobsen, Annika, de Miranda Azevedo, Ricardo, Juty, Nick, Batista, Dominique, Coles, Simon, Cornet, Ronald, Courtot, Mélanie, Crosas, Mercè, Dumontier, Michel, Evelo, Chris T., Goble, Carole, Guizzardi, Giancarlo, Hansen, Karsten Kryger, Hasnain, Ali, Hettne, Kristina, Heringa, Jaap, Hooft, Rob W.W., Imming, Melanie, Jeffery, Keith G., Kaliyaperumal, Rajaram, Kersloot, Martijn G., Kirkpatrick, Christine R., Kuhn, Tobias, Labastida, Ignasi, Magagna, Barbara, McQuilton, Peter, Meyers, Natalie, Montesanti, Annalisa, van Reisen, Mirjam, Rocca-Serra, Philippe, Pergl, Robert, Sansone, Susanna-Assunta, da Silva Santos, Luiz Olavo Bonino, Schneider, Juliane, Strawn, George, Thompson, Mark, Waagmeester, Andra, Weigel, Tobias, Wilkinson, Mark D., Willighagen, Egon L., Wittenburg, Peter, Roos, Marco, Mons, Barend, Schultes, Erik
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: One Rogers Street, Cambridge, MA 02142-1209, USA MIT Press 01.01.2020; MIT Press Journals, The
• Subjects: Accessibility; choices and challenges; Convergence; FAIR communities; FAIR convergence; FAIR guiding principles; FAIR implementation; Interoperability; Principles; Stakeholders
• ISSN: 2641-435X; 2641-435X
• DOI: 10.1162/dint_r_00024

The FAIR principles have been widely cited, endorsed and adopted by a broad range of stakeholders since their publication in 2016. By intention, the 15 FAIR guiding principles do not dictate specific technological implementations, but provide for improving Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability and Reusability of digital resources. This has likely contributed to the broad adoption of the FAIR principles, because individual stakeholder communities can implement their own FAIR solutions. However, it has also resulted in inconsistent interpretations that carry the risk of leading to incompatible implementations. Thus, while the FAIR principles are formulated on a high level and may be interpreted and implemented in different ways, for true interoperability we need to support convergence in implementation choices that are widely accessible and (re)-usable. We introduce the concept of to assist accelerated global participation and convergence towards accessible, robust, widespread and consistent FAIR implementations. Any self-identified stakeholder community may either to reuse solutions from existing implementations, or when they spot a gap, accept the to create the needed solution, which, ideally, can be used again by other communities in the future. Here, we provide interpretations and implementation considerations (choices and challenges) for each FAIR principle.