Presenting the Actionable Guidelines for FAIR Research Software Task Force (Presentation)
Patel, Bhavesh; Garijo, Daniel; Actionable FAIR4RS Task Force
- Publisher
- Zenodo
- Language
- en
Abstract
Abstract: The Research Software Alliance (ReSA) has established a Task Force dedicated to translating the FAIR Principles for Research Software (FAIR4RS Principles) into practical, actionable guidelines. Existing field-specific actionable guidelines, such as the FAIR Biomedical Research Software (FAIR-BioRS) guidelines, lack cross-discipline community input. The Actionable Guidelines for FAIR Research Software Task Force, formed in December 2024, brings together a diverse team of researchers and research software developers to address this gap. The Task Force began by analyzing the FAIR4RS Principles, where it identified six key requirement categories: Identifiers, Metadata for software publication and discovery, Standards for inputs/outputs, Qualified references, Metadata for software reuse, and License. To address these requirements, six sub-groups are conducting literature reviews and community outreach to define actionable practices for each category. Some of the challenges include identifying suitable identifiers, archival repositories, metadata standards, and best practices across research domains. This presentation provides an overview of the Task Force, presents its current progress, and outlines opportunities for community involvement. Given the progressive adoption of the FAIR4RS Principles, including by funders, we expect this presentation will provide attendees at USRSE’25 with an understanding of the FAIR4RS Principles and how they can make their software FAIR through actionable, easy-to-follow, and easy-to-implement guidelines being established by our Task Force.
Full text
Presenting the Actionable Guidelines for FAIR Research Software Task Force 1 Bhavesh Patel, Ph.D. FAIR Data Innovations Hub (CalMI2) Daniel Garijo, Ph.D. Universidad Politécnica de Madrid On behalf of the Actionable FAIR4RS Task Force [email protected]
About This Presentation 2 15 min + 2 min Q&A Learn about the Actionable FAIR4RS Task Force Developers, managers, funders, users of research software (= code files, algorithms, scripts, etc. created during the research process)
Making Software FAIR 3 FAIR = Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable
4 Making Software FAIR FAIR principles The FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) principles (2016) are high-level instructions to make research outcomes reusable https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2016.18 Widely adopted across fields of research and by all stakeholders including researchers, funders, and scientific publishers
5 Making Software FAIR FAIR4RS principles FAIR Principles for Research Software (FAIR4RS principles, 2022) are adaption of the FAIR principles for research software (and more) https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-022-01710-x
6 Making Software FAIR The FAIR4RS principles are being broadly adopted https://www.researchsoft.org/blog/2024-03 Grants for supporting compliance are available (e.g., German Research Council - DFG) Many policies require compliance with the FAIR4RS principles (e.g., Open Research Funders Group) Infrastructure are being build for enabling compliance (e.g., FAIR-IMPACT FAIR Metrics, CodeMeta)
7 Making Software FAIR Problem The FAIR4RS principles, by design, do not provide actionable instructions How do I assign a unique identifier? What is rich metadata?
FAIR-BioRS Guidelines 8
9 FAIR Biomedical Research Software (FAIR-BioRS) Guidelines (2023) Minimal, actionable, step-by-step guidelines for complying with each of the FAIR4RS principles FAIR-BioRS Guidelines About https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-023-02463-x Literature review Inputs from the biomedical research community
Progress 16
17 Progress Task 1: Understanding the FAIR4RS principles Studied the 17 principles Identified main requirements Had many questions! We identified 6 categories where actionable guidelines are needed to comply with the FAIR4RS principles: C1. Identifier C4. Qualified references C2. Metadata for software publication & discovery C5. Metadata for software reuse C3. Standards for inputs & outputs C6. License
18 Progress Task 2: Addressing questions from the 6 categories Subgroups of 2 to 5 members are investigating the questions of each category through three main approaches Literature review Personal assessment External feedback Everything is tracked through our repo’s GitHub issues: https://github.com/researchsoft/Actionable-FAIR4RS/issues
19 Progress Subgroup for category C5 “Metadata for software reuse” Two FAIR4RS principles Two main questions ●R1. Software is described with a plurality of accurate and relevant attributes ●R1.2. Software is associated with detailed provenance. ●What provenance and other metadata are necessary for software reuse? ●How to provide that metadata? Provenance metadata: ●Authors info ●Funding details Other metadata ●Software description ●Required dependencies How to provide: codemeta.json Preliminary findings
20 Progress Subgroup for category C3 “Standards for inputs & outputs” Need to hear from you about how the research software you develop read, write, and exchange data http://bit.ly/48e4OvA Survey (6-8 min)
21 Progress Timeline December 2025 Complete sub-groups investigations Summer 2026 Publish first version of the guidelines March 2026 Release first draft of the guidelines for community feedback Fall 2026 Maintain guidelines https://www.researchsoft.org/tf-actionable-fair4rs
22 Thank You! [email protected] fairdataihub.org Find these slides and all resources here bit.ly/a-FAIR4RS Stop by my poster today to discuss!
