In the last 30 months, the GO FAIR Foundation has developed the concept of “Metadata for Machine” events (M4M’s) as an effective tool to improve interoperability for communities who have embraced the FAIR principles.
Semantic interoperability is key for exchanging data between different parties. The M4M workshops are a fast and efficient way for communities of practice to discuss, define, develop, commit to and publish the necessary metadata templates and schemes for the description of datasets and other outputs within any given discipline.
Metadata templates and schemes resulting from a M4M workshop are documented as human readable outcomes as well as machine actionable outputs, allowing machines and algorithms to interpret the data. Publishing these documented tools will allow stakeholders to better reuse existing data, regardless if the data is provided through a traditional repository or via a machine actionable data-visiting-infrastructure. This approach is not only interesting for research projects, but also for all kind of other infrastructures where (sensitive and/or real world) data needs to be exchanged for reuse.
Experience with the M4M events has proven the M4M approach is domain agnostic, meaning that different disciplines can use this approach to reach tangible results fit for their own purposes. We have seen that in most cases a solid FAIR Implementation Profile, metadata template and/or schema can be developed in 4 half-day events.
We have also seen that FAIR Implementation Profiles, metadata templates and schemes developed by one community have been reused, especially by communities that are highly related. In the health space, we have noticed that a significant timesaving has been achieved by adapting existing outcomes from previous M4M’s.
The M4M approach has been created under the guidance of Dr Erik Schultes, one of the driving forces behind GO FAIR. The GO FAIR Foundation is now developing a network of qualified organizations who can execute M4M workshops, with the ultimate aim to make FAIR metadata scalable.
If you are interested in an M4M workshop, please contact the GO FAIR Foundation at info@gofairfoundation.org or contact Bert Meerman at b.meerman@gofairfoundation.org.
We are happy to guide you to the right party for your M4M project.
