Active GO FAIR Implementation Network
The FDO Forum is a group of international experts from relevant research institutions and infrastructure initiatives committed to specify FAIR Digital Objects (FDO) and its components and to foster the implementation of an infrastructure ready to support FDOs practically. This group evolved from the C2CAMP Implementation Network which stopped its activities. The FDO Forum will actively work together with working groups from other initiatives such as RDA, OAI, W3C, ISO, and IETF to achieve these goals.
As the name already indicates, the FAIR principles are the starting point of our considerations and we will look for a variety of implementation models that meet the FDO requirements such as the DO and the LDP approaches.
Work has already been done to develop the DO approach such as by CNRI, DONA and in a variety of RDA groups (Data Foundation & Terminology, PID Information Types, Data Type Registry, Kernel Information Types, Practical Policies, and Data Citation, to mention a few). Important software components have been developed and tested according to the RDA specifications and some communities now follow a DO centred approach in infrastructure building. The LDP approach based on the Web protocol stack is very well known, but also needs to address essential topics such as predictable PID resolution behaviour and machine actionable information. The basis of the FDO work will be the FDO Framework that has been agreed upon during the Paris workshop. It is now time to test it out in configurations bringing a number of the results together including components from other initiatives.
The method of work in the FDO Forum will be as follows:
- Act as a home for all discussions about FDOs and advance the specification and implementation work.
- Create Working Groups and cross-working group task forces dependent on the needs of the discussions.
- Foster infrastructure implementation and component development work enabling researchers to make use of an FDO based landscape.
- As indicated FAIR compliance is an essential pillar of its work, however, we need to specify the FDO Framework in a way that validators for FAIRness can be developed.
- Other GO FAIR INs and Groups can help to test all specifications and carry out validations.
The reason to participate in the GO FAIR Initiative as an IN is clear. We want to have a close discussion link to ensure not only FAIR compliance but also to interact with other implementation groups to increase interoperability where possible.
Guiding Purpose
Increased Interoperability through FAIR Digital Objects as one way to implement FAIR partly will help to increase the efficiency of data science enormously.
Overarching Principle of Operation
We commit to comply with the Rules of Engagement of GO FAIR Implementation Networks. The primary objectives of FDO Forum thus include:
- Developing specifications for FDO and its components to make data intensive science more efficient and disseminate the knowledge about such specifications and components.
- Push projects that implement such components in an integrated way to gather much more experience and to stepwise realise a usable infrastructure.
- Aim at a global testbed project to test out the various components being produced.
Manifesto
Link to manifesto in PDF
Contact
Christine Kirkpatrick, San Diego Supercomputer Center, GO FAIR US, contact
Dimitris Koureas, Naturalis Biodiversity Center, contact
George Strawn
Peter Wittenburg, contact
Are you interested in joining the FDO Forum?
Please express your interest in the FDO Forum developments in general by registering via the FDO Forum webpage. In case of interest in a specific Working Group, contact the co-chairs of the WG directly or consult with the IN contacts listed above.
Partners
Membership in the FDO Forum is defined by all members in the different recognised groups in the FDO Forum (see the website).
