Imperial College London

Henry Rzepa

In a [previous post](https://www.ch.imperial.ac.uk/rzepa/blog/?p=20669),
I looked at the [F]{style="color: #ff0000;"}indability of FAIR data in
common chemistry journals. Here I move on to the next letter, the
[A]{style="color: #ff0000;"} = [A]{style="color: #ff0000;"}ccessible.

The attributes of
[A]{style="color: #ff0000;"}\[cite\]10.1038/sdata.2016.18\[/cite\]
include:

1.  (meta)data are retrievable by their identifier using a standardized
    communication protocol.
2.  the protocol is open, free and universally implementable. 
3.  the protocol allows for an authentication and authorization
    procedure.
4.  metadata are accessible, even when the data are no longer
    available. 
5.  The metadata should include access information that enables
    automatic processing by a machine as well as a person.

Items 1-2 are covered by associating a DOI (digital object identifier)
with the metadata. Item 3 relates to data which is not necessarily also
OPEN (FAIR and OPEN are complementary, but do not mean the same).

Item 4 mandates that a copy of the metadata be held separately from the
data itself; currently the favoured repository is DataCite (and this
metadata way well be duplicated at CrossRef, thus providing a measure of
redundancy). It also addresses an interesting debate on whether the
container for data such as a ZIP or other compressed archive should also
contain the full metadata descriptors internally, which would not
directly address item 4, but could do so by also registering a copy of
the metadata externally with eg DataCite.

Item 4 also implies some measure of separation between the data and its
metadata, which now raises an interesting and separate issue (introduced
[with this post](https://www.ch.imperial.ac.uk/rzepa/blog/?p=20634))
that the metadata can be considered a living object, with some
attributes being updated post deposition of the data itself. Thus such
metadata could include an identifier to the journal article relating to
the data, information that only appears after the FAIR data itself is
published. Or pointers to other datasets published at a later date. Such
updating of metadata contained in an archive along with the data itself
would be problematic, since the data itself should not be a living
object.

Item 5 is the need for Accessibility to relate both to a human acquiring
FAIR data and to a machine. The latter needs direct information on
exactly how to access the data. To illustrate this, I will use data
deposited in support of the [previous
post](https://www.ch.imperial.ac.uk/rzepa/blog/?p=20679){target="_blank"
rel="noopener noreferrer"} and for which a representative example of
metadata can be found at (item 4) a separate location at:  
[[`data.datacite.org/application/vnd.datacite.datacite+xml/10.14469/hpc/5496`](https://data.datacite.org/application/vnd.datacite.datacite+xml/10.14469/hpc/5496){target="_blank"
rel="noopener noreferrer"}]{.small}

This contains the components:

6.  [`<relatedIdentifier relatedIdentifierType="URL" relationType="HasMetadata" relatedMetadataScheme="ORE"schemeURI="http://www.openarchives.org/ore/`  
    `">https://data.hpc.imperial.ac.uk/resolve/?ore=5496</relatedIdentifier>`]{.small}
7.  [`<relatedIdentifier relatedIdentifierType="URL" relationType="HasPart" relatedMetadataScheme="Filename" schemeURI="filename://aW5wdXQuZ2pm">https://data.hpc.imperial.ac.uk/resolve/?doi=5496&file=1</relatedIdentifier>`]{.small}

Item 6 is an machine-suitable RDF declaration of the [full metadata
record](https://data.hpc.imperial.ac.uk/resolve/?ore=5496){target="metadata"
rel="noopener noreferrer"}. Item 7 allows direct access to the datafile.
This in turn allows programmed interfaces to the data to be constructed,
which include *e.g.* components for immediate visualisation and/or
analysis. It also allows access on a large-scale (mining), something a
human is unlikely to try. 

It would be fair to say that the A of FAIR is still evolving. Moreover,
searches of the DataCite metadata database are not yet at the point
where one can automatically identify metadata records that have these
attributes. When they do become available, I will show some examples
here.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

**Added:** This search: [https://search.test.datacite.org/works?  
query=relatedIdentifiers.relatedMetadataScheme:ORE](https://search.test.datacite.org/works?query=relatedIdentifiers.relatedMetadataScheme:ORE){target="_blank"
rel="noopener noreferrer"} shows how it might operate.

::: {.wp_orcid_field}
[https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8635-8390](https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8635-8390){target="_blank"
rel="author"}
:::


In a previous post, I looked at the Findability of FAIR data in common chemistry journals. Here I move on to the next letter, the A = Accessible. The attributes of A[cite]10.1038/sdata.2016.18[/cite] include: (meta)data are retrievable by their identifier using a standardized communication protocol. the protocol is open, free and universally implementable.  the protocol allows for an authentication and authorization procedure.

Messaggi di Rogue Scholar

The “Accessible” in FAIR (data).