APPLICATION OF WEB ARCHITECTURE TO FAIR DATA PATTERNS

FAIR data principles align well with the open and scalable approaches that are the core of web architecture. Resources on the web present information about themselves to address discovery and access and provide stateless representation that can be shared to and accessed by others.

The application of web architectures patterns to data resources has recently become popular lead no doubt by Google’s interest in the approach. Further interest by DataONE, EarthCube and ESIP have also contributed to growing interest in this pattern.

This presentation will report on the results of the EarthCube funded program labeled Project 418 with a particular focus on how its outcomes and lessons learned relate to FAIR principles. Project 418 leveraged the application of schema.org and its extension mechanism. This approach facilitates data discovery and provides for value add opportunities on those resources in an open, scalable and sustainable manner. A dozen NSF data facilities participated with Project 418 to exposed elements of their data holdings following this pattern.

Outcomes will be presented including possible future approaches to address issues of data provenance such as leveraging W3C PROV and PROV-AQ patterns. Also shown will be the use of persistent identifiers in structured metadata and how these IDs were leveraged in the indexes and user interfaces. Additionally, applications of this approach in data packages like Frictionless Data Packages will be presented along with publishing examples of these packages.

This work provided only a small perspective on how web architecture patterns could impact FAIR data goals. A large body of work remains to be addressed. Opinions on these gaps and potential approaches based on Project 418 outcomes will also be presented.