Getting Started with FAIRsharing
Perhaps you've searched FAIRsharing and noticed your standard, database or policy isn’t there. Or maybe it is there, but needs some updates. Not to worry, you can add and update records easily.
Please note that this document is still under construction. Please get in touch with us if you have any questions.
You don't need an account with us to search FAIRsharing and discover resources relevant to your community. However, if you wish to contribute to FAIRsharing, for example if you have a database that you wish to register with us to improve your resource's findability, then you'll need an account.
The minimum information for an account with us is a valid email address and a username. The email address can be either for an individual or a group and records can be maintained by more than one account.
You may use your ORCID, Twitter or GitHub account to log into FAIRsharing. In this case, the email address used within those accounts will become the one linked to your FAIRsharing account.
- 2.You will be presented with the option to create a FAIRsharing account via ORCID, Twitter or GitHub. Choose which method you would like to use to log into FAIRsharing.
- 3.If the email linked to your third-party account is new to FAIRsharing, then after authentication, a new FAIRsharing account will be created for you using the information from that account.
- 4.If the email linked to your third-party account is already associated with a FAIRsharing account, then after authentication, you will be taken directly to your existing FAIRsharing account.
Linking an ORCID account requires that your default email with ORCID is visible to FAIRsharing. You may need to modify your ORCID profile settings if your email address is not visible. To do this go to https://orcid.org/my-orcid select "emails" and set visibility to "trusted parties" or to "everyone" (see screenshot below).
The little orange key signifies that your email is visible to trusted parties.
Some users have noticed that the FAIRsharing site hangs after updating their ORCID settings and logging in again on the FAIRsharing site. If this happens to you, simply log out of ORCID and then refresh the FAIRsharing page.
You can also create an account directly with us without using authentication via social media accounts.
- 2.Choose the "Create a new account" option to create an account with us without using a social media account (this takes you to https://fairsharing.org/accounts/signup).
- 3.Fill in the details requested in the form and click "Register my new account". You will be sent an activation code from [email protected], but sometimes this gets accidentally filtered by people's email systems into their spam folder. Please let us know if you have any questions, and we'll be happy to help you with the process.
To log in, visit https://fairsharing.org/accounts/login. Your user profile contains a variety of information about you. As an example, here is the public profile for one of our curators:
What a user profile in FAIRsharing looks like
There are a variety of actions you can perform on your user profile, all accessible from the "burger" menu in the top right of your profile.
The options available via your user profile menu. Please note that the options available to you depend on 1) if you are logged in, and 2) your user role.
Edit profile allows you to update your user details, including your organisation, email preferences and ORCID identifier. It is greyed out in the image above because the user is not yet logged in. Once logged in, you will have access to this feature for your account. Reset password allows you to reset your FAIRsharing password, even if you have forgotten it. Logout logs you out of the FAIRsharing system; please note that this will happen automatically after 24 hours if you have not logged yourself out. The other options are available only to curators.
Not sure if your database, standard or policy qualifies for addition to FAIRsharing? You can check here: https://fairsharing.org/new/
FAIRsharing maintains three, inter-related resource registries across all domains and subjects:
- Standards - including reporting guidelines (e.g. the ARRIVE guidelines), terminology artefacts (ontologies, controlled vocabularies, e.g. OBI), Identifier Schema (e.g. DOI and IVOA Identifier) and Models and Formats (e.g. MINiML)
- Data policies - including those from journals, journal publishers, funders and other organisations (e.g. Transparency and Openness Promotion Guidelines (TOP))
To allow the grouping of records across these three registries, we support the generation of Collections. We encourage Collections collated according to a specific criteria, for example, those databases and standards recommended by a funding body or journal policy.
Please note that we do not store datasets. Please see the following points for additional clarification.
- No files (excel, doc, csv, sql…), no data relating to an article publication:
- If you would like to submit a database record, the database should be an organised collection of data and datasets rather than just an individual dataset.
- The resource is findable.
- Databases. Users can access the database via an active website and can also browse and/or search the database. In contrast, datasets are generally downloadable but not searchable, and therefore are not appropriate for FAIRsharing.
- Standards and Data Policies. Users can access the resource via an active website and, where appropriate, can browse/download the specification/document and any associated documentation. The standard/data policy should be applicable to an entire community or cross-organisation consortia, and not just for a single lab or researcher.
- The resource is accessible. Irrespective of licence type, the resource is available to users via a dedicated website (even if a log in or payment is required).
- I have a dataset that I need to make public. Where should I store my dataset?
- If you would like to find a home for your data, try browsing our complete subject hierarchy or searching our database records to find an appropriate database for your data type.
- Alternatively, you could look at our collection of Generalist Repositories or browse all subject-agnostic records, which may provide you with a location to store data from a wider range of research areas. If you are submitting to a particular journal, you can also search for that journal or its publisher; if they are registered with us, then their FAIRsharing data policy record(s) may contain a list of recommended databases and/or standards.
First, check that your resource isn't already with us. You can do this through any of a number of ways for searching and discovering resources.
If you can't find it in FAIRsharing, please visit https://fairsharing.org/new/ to get started on a new record. If it is in FAIRsharing, you can claim it (see next section) and then, once your claiming request is approved, begin updating the record.
FAIRsharing mints new DOIs approximately once per month in collaboration with DataCite. These DOIs describe the FAIRsharing record; they provide a persistent unique identifier for your record and its metadata in FAIRsharing. Please note that your FAIRsharing DOI is not, therefore, a DOI for the described resource itself.
In order for your record to be a candidate for a DOI, it needs to meet the following requirements:
- The record must be approved by our in-house Curation team at least two weeks previous to the date of the DOI minting run
- The record must NOT be a collection
- The record must have at least one Subject tag
- The record must have at least one Taxonomy tag
- The record homepage must resolve
- The record must have a ready status
If your record meets these requirements then, at the end of each monthly DOI minting run, you will receive an automated email from FAIRsharing letting you know your new FAIRsharing record DOI .
Claiming a record as either a group or an individual gives you the opportunity to make changes to the record yourself, allowing you complete control over how your resource is displayed in FAIRsharing. Maintainers are also notified if our curation team edits the record, if users ask questions, or if the record is linked from another record, such as from a journal publisher data policy.
FAIRsharing is about making your resource discoverable to a variety of users, such as journals and publishers, researchers and service providers, research and infrastructure projects and programmes, as well as curators, librarians, funders and other policy makers and data scientists. A contact is essential should they have any questions about your resource.
Choose "Request ownership" from the "ACTIONS" menu of the record you'd like to update. This will let FAIRsharing know that you are a developer of this resource and you'd like to help maintain this record.
Choose "Request Ownership" to become a maintainer of a FAIRsharing record.
Once you have requested ownership, a notification will be sent to the FAIRsharing curation team. Once we have checked that you are affiliated with the resource for the record you have claimed, we will approve your ownership and you can begin editing the record. This usually happens within a couple of working days.
There are two types of user account in FAIRsharing: personal accounts for individuals, and organisation-level accounts for those who wish to tie the FAIRsharing account to a general contact or helpdesk email address. Multiple maintainers are allowed, and encouraged, in FAIRsharing records. Individual accounts allow you to link the record to your ORCID, and also give you complete control over the account. However, if a user leaves an organisation, there can be delay involved in finding a suitable replacement. Institutional accounts allow multiple people to have access to a single account via a helpdesk or general contact email address, providing redundancy of ownership as individual members of the resource leave and join the project. However, institutional accounts cannot have ORCIDs linked to them.
Please choose whatever type of account suits your project's needs. We recommend that one institutional account is used, together with as many individual accounts as needed to provide attribution and linking with the maintainers' ORCIDs.
Last modified 4mo ago