6 R - Reusabilty
The ultimate goal of FAIR is to optimise the reuse of data. To achieve this, metadata and data should be well-described so that they can be replicated and/or combined in different settings.
In the definition of the European Data Governance Act, ‘re-use’ means the use by natural or legal persons of data held by public sector bodies, for commercial or non-commercial purposes other than the initial purpose within the public task for which the data were produced, except for the exchange of data between public sector bodies purely in pursuit of their public tasks (Article 2.)
6.1 Non-technical
- Describe the scope of your data: for what purpose was it generated/collected? Mention any particularities or limitations about the data that other users should be aware of.
- Specify the date of generation/collection of the data, the lab conditions, who prepared the data, the parameter settings, the name and version of the software used.
- Is it raw or processed data?
- Ensure that all variable names are explained or self-explanatory (i.e., defined in the research field’s controlled vocabulary).
- Clearly specify and document the version of the archived and/or reused data.
6.2 FAIR (Technical)
R1. (Meta)data are richly described with a plurality of accurate and relevant attributes
R1.1. (Meta)data are released with a clear and accessible data usage license
Under ‘I’, we covered elements of technical interoperability. R1.1 is about legal interoperability.
R1.2. (Meta)data are associated with detailed provenance
R1.3. (Meta)data meet domain-relevant community standards