Harmonised terminologies and schemas for FAIR data in materials science and related domains WG - Case Statement
The proposed Working Group on “Harmonised terminologies and schemas for FAIR data in materials science and related domains” recognises the wide range of activities in several countries and world regions aiming to achieve FAIR data, support semantic data management and interoperability in the materials sciences and related domains. While the main focus of the WG is in the material sciences, close interactions with cognate domains, in particular chemistry, are crucial in order to avoid conflicting approaches and also to utilise and integrate with already existing semantic artefacts and resources in these fields. The WG will review the current landscape in the context of good practice and FAIR maturity and elaborate recommendations and guidance for practitioners working in the materials sciences and related domains.
Objectives of the Working Group are:
- Collect and review existing vocabularies/terminologies, schemas, etc. for the material sciences and cognate domains such as chemistry;
- Propose and verify best practices for materials science practitioners to improve FAIR data based on terminologies, schema, ontologies, etc.;
- Identify needs for harmonisation of terminologies and schema in the material sciences;
- Demonstrate successful implementation of FAIR terminologies, schema and ontologies in specific use cases.
The WG will focus on increasing uptake of the FAIR Principles in chemical and materials research (in particular in connection with Interoperability and Reusability), supported by improved resources (having improved FAIR maturity), and more widely-shared metadata and ontologies.
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Author: Clement Jonquet
Date: 23 Jan, 2024
Very interesting case statement and happy to see MatPortal and IndustryPortal mentionned. I would strongly encourage the group to push further away to commit to recommend to use an ontology repository and in exchange rely and engage with them for new services.
Author: Zachary Trautt
Date: 21 Feb, 2024
Thank you for your comments and suggestions. We will ensure they are taken into consideration by the group and hope you will actively engage our group going forward. We are moving forward with a keen understanding of existing data services within the community.
Author: Najla Rettberg
Date: 25 Jan, 2024
This is very interesting development towards closing the gap in FAIR implementation in this domain. My comment would be: can infrastructure providerswho are supporting terminology services learn something from the outcomes of your WG to give the ‘Best practice recommendations’ in other domains? Might be worth also in the German context to look at the development of a service called TS4NFDI a) in the light of being a case study and b) lessons learned for real-life take up of such a cross-domain approach across disciplinary communities and also how this could be replicated or actually used at international level. I see many similar initiatives (individuals who are also involved in TS4NFDI) are mentioned already so coverage is very good.
Author: Zachary Trautt
Date: 21 Feb, 2024
Thank you for your comments and suggestions. We will ensure they are taken into consideration by the group and hope you will actively engage our group going forward. We have been in close contact with members of TS4NFDI in the preparation phase, e.g. Oliver Koepler. If you can help connect us to other interested parties in TS4NFDI, we would greatly appreciate the opportunity to speak to them. In particular, it would be useful if they could register as Members of the WG.
Author: Allyson Lister
Date: 25 Jan, 2024
Very interesting proposal! I note that you mention a review and harmonisation of the existing landscape in this research area, and I suggest that you work together with the FAIRsharing WG (of which I'm a co-chair) to utilise FAIRsharing, where possible, as part of this review.
FAIRsharing is a curated, informative and educational resource on data and metadata standards, inter-related to databases and data policies, across all disciplines. It guides consumers to discover, select and use these resources with confidence, producers to make their resource more discoverable, more widely adopted and cited, and powers third party tools by providing trustworthy content to promote standards and databases.
If you find that there are gaps in FAIRsharing's standards registry then we would be happy to have feedback to update and add records as appropriate. You could also use FAIRsharing's collections to "slice" FAIRsharing according to the requirements of your WG, to provide a live representation of those standards that your WG is evaluating, as more than one RDA WG has done (see https://fairsharing.org/3540 for an example, albeit one that was a snapshot of a particular time).
Any collaboration with the FAIRsharing WG in this way can be attributed, e.g. if the WG member who works with FAIRsharing becomes a FAIRsharing Community Champion (https://fairsharing.org/community_champions). Please let us know if you're interested!
Author: Zachary Trautt
Date: 21 Feb, 2024
Thank you for your comments and suggestions. We will ensure they are taken into consideration by the group and hope you will continue to actively engage our group going forward. Thank you in particular for your further detailed suggestions about working with FAIRsharing. We will also consider reinvigorating https://fairsharing.org/3512 which was created by a now dormant task group working within VSIG.
Author: Lindsey Anderson
Date: 01 Feb, 2024
Interesting proposal, especially around FAIR maturity indicator implementations. Under the main objectives proposed by this working group, I noticed there is mention of "collection and review of existing vocabularies/terminologies, schemas, etc. for the material sciences and cognate domains such as chemistry." I will note there are similar/complimentary efforts currently underway in the RDA-OfR Creating a Multi-omics Metadata Schema Standard Reporting Matrix WG with identified subject/domain overlap with many of the referenced resources and relevant technologies mentioned in your proposal.
There is a great opportunity to leverage/collaborate with existing efforts and avoid any objective redundancies through engagement with the RDA-OfR Multi-Omics WG as a few of their main deliverables include a granular landscape review of existing standards (terminologies and schemas included) and an Omics FAIRsharing standards collection through their engagement with the FAIRsharing WG (as mentioned above by Allyson). Please let us know if you are interested in collaborating!
As a +1 to earlier comments, this group may find the RDA disciplines page for Chemistry as a useful resource for reference.
Author: Zachary Trautt
Date: 21 Feb, 2024
Thank you for your comments and suggestions. We will ensure they are taken into consideration by the group and hope you will actively engage our group going forward. Yes, we are interested in collaborating. Once we get up and running, we think it best to organize a joint working meeting to trade notes.
Author: Ilian Todorov
Date: 07 Feb, 2024
I am excited to see the statement and objectives of this WG as an outcome of the long-standing efforts by EMMC ASBL and the large body of work carried out by the OntoCommons (CSA) project, eventually leading to the KGA formation. Materials science is muti-scale in nature and any work from data to knowledge and back can only be helped by addressing what we do about with respect to the many dimensions of their quality and connectedness. The multitude of communities, perspectives and their diversity and specificity of "language/formats/semantics" used needs harmonisation (if not orchestration).
Author: Zachary Trautt
Date: 21 Feb, 2024
Thank you for your comments and suggestions. We will ensure they are taken into consideration by the group and hope you will actively engage our group going forward. We are moving forward with a keen understanding of the full complexity of materials science and engineering.