Taking care of your research data is an essential part of good scientific practice. Fairdata services are made to ease this task. Get familiar with the Fairdata services with the video above read the text version of the video.
The Fairdata services consists of separate but interoperable services that support the data discovery, data storing and data management. Services are provided for data management, describing metadata, and safe storage, as well as digital preservation over decades, technology cycles and research projects. In the background of the services, the user is provided with metadata passage between services, the single sign-on to the services and the smooth transition between separate services.
Services provide many benefits. The data is safely stored for further use and reuse and data has persistent identifiers for references. Sharing data and finding data for one’s own use is easy. Meeting the research funders’ requirements of openness is easy by using Fairdata services.
How to make the research dataset FAIR?
Researcher, do these:
- Make a well-tought research plan and a data management plan. Don’t do them just for the sake of form. Keep them up to date.
- Document your data and take care of storing it: pay special attention to comprehensibility and think about how DATA should be stored after the research project is over.
- Get a persistent identifier at least for your dataset and use it whenever you can, especially in citations.
- Use research services that support FAIR principles.
How do Fairdata services support you?
Implementing a good data management plan requires appropriate services. Several FAIR principles can be implemented through service functionalities, following the research process. Fairdata services utilize many common vocabularies, making the data findable and interoperable. The services are based on open source.
IDA research data storage service provides researchers with reliable storage space for research data. As the files are “frozen”, technical metadata about the files is generated in Metax metadata repository, and the files can be made parts of datasets.
- The data stored in IDA can be described with Qvain and published through Etsin Dataset Finder, making the data findable and accessible.
- The Services increase the reliability of the research data: if the data stored in IDA is changed, it will receive a new identifier.
Qvain is a metadata creation tool. With Qvain, datasets are described so that it can be published. As a user of IDA service, you can easily refer to your files while creating metadata. The finalized metadata records will be published in Etsin.
- Qvain helps you to transform research data documentation into an interoperable, machine-readable format.
- Qvain will help you choose a suitable license for your dataset.
- The Services will provide your data with a persistent identifier when you publish your research dataset with Qvain. When the dataset has a persistent identifier the information about the dataset is preserved, which also promotes the findability of the dataset.
- You can also use the services to publish materials, that require applying for use permission.
Etsin is a research dataset finder that helps you find and access research datasets. In addition to metadata about datasets created by Qvain, it harvests metadata from external data resources. In the background of Etsin, there is also a system for applying for and granting permits to use restricted access datasets.
- Etsin provides a persistent landing page for your dataset.
Digital Preservation Service for Research Data takes care of the digital preservation of research outputs. Digital preservation is the reliable storage of digital information for tens or even hundreds of years. There is an admin service to manage the path to preservation and a packaging service that builds Submission Information Packages that will be sent in preservation. DP Service for Research Data is integrated so that it can easily exploit files in IDA, and metadata in Metax.
- Digital Preservation Service for Research Data stores the datasets persistently and secures accessibility.
Metax is a metadata resource for research data operating in the background of IDA, Qvain, Etsin and Digital Preservation Service for Research Data. Most of the file transfers between the components are made available via Metax.
