FAIR assessment at scale: an introduction to bulk FAIR assessment for research data infrastructures

Single-record FAIR checkers work well at a small scale and stop working at the point most data stewards actually need them: an institutional collection.

John Shepherdson (CESSDA ERIC) will introduce bulk FAIR assessment for research data infrastructures and give a live demonstration of the FAD, the FAIR Assessment Dashboard, before setting out where the tool is heading in the remaining phase of the OSTrails project.

The session will be structured as a talk, followed by a five-minute live demo and open discussion. It is pitched at data stewards and data leads rather than developers, and it is deliberately practical: what the tooling can do now, where it points you next, and what it does not solve.

Some assessment tools carry a fixed FAIR benchmark built in. Others, FAD among them, run an externally defined, community-owned benchmark scoring algorithm.

What to expect

• Why single-record FAIR checkers do not scale to institutional collections
• How tiered maturity results, rather than binary pass or fail, give data stewards something they can act on
• The difference between tools with a fixed built-in benchmark and tools that run an externally defined, community-owned benchmark scoring algorithm
• A live demonstration of the FAIR Assessment Dashboard, FAD
• Where the tool is going before the OSTrails project ends

Who is this for

This call is for anyone responsible for the FAIRness of a collection rather than a single record. You will find it especially relevant if you:

• Are a data steward or data lead working with an institutional or thematic repository
• Need to report on, or improve, the FAIRness of a collection at scale
• Are weighing up FAIR assessment tooling and want to understand what the benchmark question really means in practice
• Are following OSTrails, FAIR Champion, FAIRsharing or related benchmark work
• Are a member of the ELIXIR-UK RDM Club, or curious about joining

Bring your own practice

John is closing on open questions rather than conclusions. He is keen to hear how people are already tackling the FAIRness of institutional repositories and similar collections, so come with what you have tried, what stalled and what you are still working out. He has also offered to go deeper on the technical and configuration side for anyone interested, either in the session if time allows or afterwards.