Overview
The Actionable Guidelines for FAIR Research Software Task Force is aiming to establish guidelines that are easy to follow and implement by researchers for making their research software Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR) in line with the FAIR principles for Research software (FAIR4RS Principles). The Task Force was initiated in December 2024 and is aiming to release a first draft of the guidelines by the end of 2025. All the outcomes of the task force will be openly shared under the CC-BY-4.0 license.
Background
Based on the FAIR data principles that have gained worldwide recognition and adoption, the FAIR4RS principles provide a framework for making research software optimally reusable by both humans and machines. They provide an answer to the question “What are some principles everyone should follow to make their research software conveniently reusable by others?”. The FAIR4RS principles are, by design, meant to be aspirational and only provide general instructions. There have been efforts to establish actionable guidelines based on the FAIR4RS principles, such as the FAIR Biomedical Research Software (FAIR-BioRS) guidelines, but they are domain-specific and lack large community inputs. Actionable guidelines are lacking such that researchers can follow them to practically make their software FAIR. Therefore, the aims of this Task Force are to 1) Develop actionable, easy-to-follow, and easy-to-implement guidelines that are applicable across scientific disciplines and 2) To do so through broad community effort to account for the nuances and needs across disciplines and geographic locations.
Join the Task Force
Even though the work has started, we are happy to have new members join and contribute to this critical effort. If you are interested, email bpatel@calmi2.org.
Timeline and Roadmap
- September 2024: Proposal for the Task Force submitted to ReSA
- December 2024: Kick-off meeting of the task force
- December 2024-March 2025: Completed the interpretation of the FAIR4RS principles. Overview and outcomes are provided in this document.
- March 2025-May 2025: Finding answers through literature review, discussions with experts, etc. to outstanding questions for implementing the FAIR4RS principles. Status: On going.
Resources
Members
- Bhavesh Patel (chair), FAIR Data Innovations Hub, California Medical Innovations Institute, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0307-262X
- Freyja Van Den Boom
- Majid Ounsy
- Daniel Garijo, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid
- Neil Chue Hong, Software Sustainability Institute & EPCC / University of Edinburgh
- Daniel Nüst, NFDI4Earth / TU Dresden
- Marie Houillon (co-chair), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
- Marie-Christine Jacquemot
- Alexander Struck, Cluster of Excellence Matters of Activity at Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1173-9228
- Priyanka Ojha (co-chair), https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6844-6493
- Sophie Gleiser
- Carlos Ortiz
- Faruk Diblen
- Jonathan Starr
- Kelvin Lee, McMaster University, https://orcid.org/0009-0000-7340-3204
- Stephan Druskat, German Aerospace Center (DLR), https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4925-7248
- Ruaridh Gollifer
- Allen Lee, Arizona State University / Open Modeling Foundation / CoMSES.Net
- Rebecca Ringuette, Heliophysics Digital Resource Library / NASA Goddard
