The assessment tools are all using different metrics for the evaluation of FAIRness, consisting of indicators aimed to measure the state or level of a digital resource with regard to a specific FAIR principle, and they are even using different units of measurement. Following this consideration, it is almost impossible to create appropriate mappings between the different FAIR metrics that the tools are using, as in many cases the metrics aren’t matching to each. Moreover, the practical tests are being executed differently per tool, even if the metrics do match.
After various considerations we came to the solution to use the Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS) as a way to organize all metrics in a structured manner and link high-level and low-level FAIR indicators semantically with different types of “associative” relations to specify a partitive (part of) relationship between the different metrics in use and their relationship to the FAIR principles. For example, broader or narrower instead of exact match, and provide references to the four high level FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable).
Another benefit of using SKOS is the ability to add the description of the metrics in multiple languages (translations). The SKOS file is based on “best effort” and is meant for machine-actionability, and already contains properties in English and Spanish. The semantic mapping is published on Zenodo and publicly available.
EOSC-synergy receives funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 857647.
Image: FREYA Project CC-BY 4.0
