The Metroline - Steps for your FAIRification Workflow

STATUS: IN DEVELOPMENT WG REVIEW

The FAIR principles aim to make data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable, to maximize the reuse of (research) data. See this page for more information on FAIR.

But, where do you start to make your dataset or other digital resource FAIR? What steps are concerned? What do these steps mean and, importantly, how do you implement these steps? The FAIR Metroline provides guidance to help you reach your FAIR goals.

The FAIR Metroline gives an overview of steps used by a variety of publications and initiatives to reach their FAIR goals (see the picture below). By properly describing what all of these steps entail and adding practical how-tos, the steps can be used to help researchers and data stewards make data more FAIR.

The steps also provide guidance for onboarding (meta)data to the Dutch National Health Data Catalogue.

The FAIR Metroline contains many steps. Depending on your project and goals only a select number of steps may be relevant. Thus, each project will have its own workflow:

Given the large number of steps, we focus on detailed how-to descriptions and real-life examples of FAIr Metroline steps that align with the development of the Dutch National Health Data Catalogue, which is currently the Health-RI priority. Using this approach we ensure focus is on steps that are relevant right now for end users. For the current status of the steps see this page.

Furthermore, we are also developing FAIR steps together with funders, to incorporate FAIR into projects from the start. The exact approach and alignment with the FAIR Metroline is still under development.