Principles

Work in progress

FAIR Priciples

FAIR Principles definition as referenced from:
Wilkinson, M. D. et al. The FAIR Guiding Principles for scientific data management and stewardship. Sci. Data 3:160018 doi: 10.1038/sdata.2016.18 (2016).

Findability:

  • F1: (meta)data are assigned a globally unique and persistent identifier
    • A DOI is allocated to every published dataset in RDSpace@UBT.
  • F2: data are described with rich metadata (defined by R1 below)
    • RDSpace@UBT's metadata is compliant with DataCite's Metadata Schema minimum, recommended and optional terms, with additional enrichements.
  • F3: metadata clearly and explicitly include the identifier of the data it describes
    • The DOI is a top-level and mandatory field in the metadata of each dataset.
  • F4: (meta)data are registered or indexed in a searchable resource
    • Metadata of each dataset is indexed and searchable directly in RDSpace@UBT's search engine immediately after submission.
    • Metadata of each dataset to be archived and published is sent to DataCite servers during DOI registration and indexed at DataCite Commons.

Accessibility:

  • A1: (meta)data are retrievable by their identifier using a standardized communications protocol
  • A1.1: the protocol is open, free, and universally implementable
    • See A1: OAI-PMH and REST API are open, free and universal protocols
  • A1.2: the protocol allows for an authentication and authorization procedure, where necessary
    • Metadata are publicly accessible and licensed under public domain (CC0). No authorization is ever necessary to retrieve it.
  • A2: metadata are accessible, even when the data are no longer available
    • Bitstreams and metadata will be retained for the lifetime of the repository (See Policies).
    • Metadata are stored in high-availability database servers at University of Bayreuth's IT Service Center, which are separate to the bitstreams themselves.

Interoperability:

  • I1: (meta)data use a formal, accessible, shared, and broadly applicable language for knowledge representation
    • RDSpace@UBT uses an XML schema as internal representation of metadata and offers export to other popular formats such as Dublin Core, DataCite or MARCXML.
  • I2: (meta)data use vocabularies that follow FAIR principles
    • For certain terms RDSpace@UBT refers to open, external vocabularies, e.g.: subjects (), license (Open Definition) and funders (FundRef).
  • I3: (meta)data include qualified references to other (meta)data
    • Each referrenced external metadata is qualified by a resolvable URL.

Reusability:

  • R1: (meta)data are richly described with a plurality of accurate and relevant attributes
    • Each dataset contains a minimum of DataCite's mandatory terms, with additional DataCite recommended and optional terms and RDSpace@UBT's enrichments.
  • R1.1: (meta)data are released with a clear and accessible data usage license
    • License is one of the mandatory terms in RDSpace@UBT's metadata, and is referring to an Open Definition license.
    • Data downloaded by the users is subject to the license specified in the metadata by the depositor.
  • R1.2: (meta)data are associated with detailed provenance
    • All bitstreams and metadata uploaded are tracable to a registered user / University of Bayreuth member.
    • Metadata can optionally describe the original authors / creators of a published object.
  • R1.3: (meta)data meet domain-relevant community standards
    • RDSpace@UBT is not a domain-specific repository.
      However, through compliance with DataCite's Metadata Schema, metadata meets one of the broadest cross-domain standards available.


Plan S - compliance self-assessment


As RDSpace@UBT is conceptualized as an Open Access Repository, the University of Bayreuth aims at fullfilling the criteria mentioned in the Plan S requirements for Open Access Repositories (as published October 2019).

See our actual status concerning the Plan S Principles and Implementation (under Part III: Technical Guidance and Requirements / 2. Requirements for Open Access Repositories).


Mandatory Criteria for Repositories


1 - The repository must be registered in the Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR) or in the process of being registered. ✖We are working on it!
2 - Use of PIDs for the deposited versions of the publications (with versioning, for example in case of revisions), such as DOI (preferable), URN, or Handle. ✔
  • RDSpace@UBT registers DOIs (via DataCite) for all deposited datasets. See RDSpace@UBT at DataCite Commons.
  • RDSpace@UBT supports DOI versioning.
  • Objects with pre-existing DOIs may be uploaded and the external DOI displayed.
3 - High quality article level metadata in standard interoperable non-proprietary format, under a CC0 public domain dedication. This must include information on the DOI (or other PIDs) both of the original publication and the deposited version, on the version deposited (AAM/VoR), and on the Open Access status and the license of the deposited version. Metadata must include complete and reliable information on funding provided by cOAlition S funders (including as a minimum the name of the funder and the grant number/identifier). ✔
  • "High quality article level metadata"
    • RDSpace@UBT supports the DataCite Metadata Schema v4.
    • The following additional article level fields are supported: journal title/volume/issue/pages, conference title/acronym/dates/place/website, book publisher/place/ISBN/title/pages, alternate persistent identifiers (see all fields).
  • "in standard interoperable non-proprietary format"
    • The following metadata formats are provided by RDSpace@UBT:
      • MARCXML,
      • Dublin Core (according to OpenAIRE Guidelines),
      • DataCite
      • ...
  • "under a CC0 public domain dedication"
    • All metadata in RDSpace@UBT may be freely used under the CC0 waiver. (See terms of use, bullet 7).
  • "[...] include information on the DOI (or other PIDs) both of the original publication and the deposited version"
    • RDSpace@UBT registers DOIs for all data submissions.
    • RDSpace@UBT allows including information on alternate persistent identifiers, as well as linking to related persistent identifiers.
  • "include [..] the Open Access status and the license of the deposited version"
    • All RDSpace@UBT datasets include the Open Access status according to the COAR access right vocabulary (open, embargoed, restricted, closed).
    • All open access and embargoed datasets specify a license of the deposited content. Any license from the Open Definition and SPDX vocabularies are supported (including all Creative Commons licenses).
  • "including as a minimum the name of the funder and the grant number/identifier"
    • All datasets can be uniquely linked to grants and funders via the internal funder and project entities in the RDSpace@UBT database. The database currently covers 29 national and international funders (as of September 2023).
4 - Machine readable information on the Open Access status and the license embedded in the article, in standard non-proprietary format. ✔
  • The open access status and a license are embedded in all metadata formats (i.e. machine-readable). See our APIs below in the strongly recommended criteria response.
  • It is the responsibility of the depositor to ensure the open access status and a license is embedded in any digital file uploaded. RDSpace@UBT does not modify files uploaded by users in any way.
5 - Continuous availability (uptime at least 99.7%, not taking into account scheduled downtime for maintenance or upgrades). ✖We are working on it!
6 - Helpdesk: as a minimum, an email address (functional mailbox) has to be provided; a response time of no more than one business day must be ensured. ✔


Strongly Recommended Additional Criteria for Repositories


7 - Manuscript submission system that supports both individual author uploads and bulk uploads of manuscripts (AAM or VoR) by publishers. ✔
  • RDSpace@UBT support users/machines uploading both AAM and VoR versions of datasets.
  • RDSpace@UBT supports both author uploads via a normal deposit user interface as well as bulk uploads via deposit user interface or the API.
8 - Full text stored in a machine-readable community standard format such as JATS XML. ✔ RDSpace@UBT supports all file formats, consistent with the goal of accommodating all research objects.
9 - Support for PIDs for authors (e.g., ORCID), funders, funding programmes and grants, institutions, and other relevant entities. ✖
  • Planned:
    • ORCID support for authors / creators and contributors.
    • ROR support for institutions.
  • In Place:
    • Open Funder Registry supported for funders.
10 - Openly accessible data on citations according to the standards by the Initiative for Open Citations (I4OC). ✔
  • RDSpace@UBT supports linking records with related persistent identifiers (both incoming and outgoing links - i.e. citations and references).
    The links are exported in the DataCite metadata registered with the DOI, and thus makes the links available in the CrossRef/DataCite Event Data.
  • Discovering citations to a record requires global knowledge of the entire world-wide corpus of journal articles which is out of scope for RDSpace@UBT.
    However, harvesting openly available citation databases (Crossref/DataCite Event Data, and Europe PMC) for citations to Zenodo objects is planned.
11 - Open API to allow others (including machines) to access the content. A compliant API must be free to access without any barrier. A light authentication mechanism such as a token for ‘power users’ – e.g., high-traffic collaborators – is acceptable as long as there is a totally open/anonymous route too. ✖
12 - OpenAIRE compliance of the metadata. ✔ RDSpace@UBT is compliant with the OpenAIRE Guidelines v3.0.
13 - Quality assurance processes to link full-text deposits with authoritative bibliographic metadata from third-party systems, e.g., PubMed, Crossref, or SCOPUS where feasible. ? Needs checking!