FAIR and ORA

What is FAIR?

The FAIR principles are a set of guidelines which describe how digital research items can be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable by both people and computers. For example, a dataset record is more findable if stable long-term access is assured by a DOI, and more reusable if a licence is applied confirming if and how it can be used. The FAIR principles are therefore an important and helpful articulation of the ways that research datasets can be prepared to maximise the benefits of them being stored and shared in repositories such as ORA.

To understand and show how dataset records in ORA meet the FAIR principles, and to encourage depositing researchers to increase their FAIRness, ORA now uses a FAIR assessment tool, developed in collaboration with the FAIRsharing team, who support the FAIRsharing registry and a number of FAIR-enabling tools and services.

This involved first defining how the principles apply to ORA as an institutional repository, and what the benchmark for meeting each principle should be. Records are now tested against those benchmarks, with the results combined and presented. For more info on the FAIR principles, see: https://www.go-fair.org/fair-principles/

For more info on the FAIR principles, see: https://www.go-fair.org/fair-principles/

FAIR scores

When you deposit a dataset in ORA, its metadata will be automatically assessed against the FAIR principles. The outcome of this assessment is a ‘FAIR score’ which will be sent to you with some guidance about how, if at all, the score could be increased. The score will also be displayed on the ORA record page with a graphic representing the extent to which the four elements of Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability and Reusability have been met.

ORA is committed to continuously improving FAIR compliance across the platform, but total compliance is not currently achievable for all records. Some criteria depend on external systems and community standards outside of ORA’s direct control and others on system limitations which we are actively developing.(add when defined: what can be done by the author and how/when will the score be updated)

For tips on how to improve your dataset record’s FAIR score in ORA, visit: https://libguides.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/ora/fair

Information for repositories

The work that the Bodleian and FAIRsharing teams have done to create the process for a FAIR assessment has focussed on making it work for ORA as an institutional repository where datasets from a wide range of research disciplines are deposited. We also had the ambition that the process could be adopted by other institutional generalist repositories wishing to also carry-out their own FAIR assessments. To that end, we have made documents available for others to access and reuse. To date, this is the description of the narrative components of the Institutional Repository Benchmark. Colleagues working to support institutional repositories are very welcome to use these and/or contact the teams at Oxford for advice.

Insights from the process can also be found in the following blogs and presentations created and delivered during the project:

Contact us

Contact the ORA team via our contact page with any queries about your dataset's FAIR score and how you might be able to improve it.

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