A significant amount of work of the ELIXIR Interoperability Platform (EIP) is the dissemination of interoperability know-how, best practices, and use case examples, as well as the availability and applicability of resources for FAIR services in general and for interoperability in particular.
A systematic, sustainable approach to gathering and disseminating the collective knowledge of the Platform members and the outcomes of ELIXIR-related projects is needed, both internally to serve ELIXIR members and Nodes, and externally to researchers, infrastructure providers and projects that seek ELIXIR support.
The EIP Knowledge Hub is therefore proposed as a systematic approach to collate and disseminate knowledge, working in close partnership with the FAIR Services Architecture Framework to support and provide a dissemination forum for the outputs generated from Task 1.
The aim is to provide resources for both ELIXIR users and external researchers, and to act as a knowledge portal where researchers, ELIXIR communities, external projects and other RIs can find documentation on ELIXIR adopted services, resources, best practice and training materials.
Two major stakeholder communities with different knowledge dissemination routes will be addressed:
- Common practitioners, that is Data stewards, Developers and Researchers requiring knowledge of FAIR and interoperability best practice for Research Data management.
- Advanced practitioners in data stewardship and infrastructure and tool development that are developing ontologies, standards and FAIR services
To deliver the Knowledge Hub we will use the ELIXIR RDMkit and the FAIR CookBook as components of the knowledge dissemination platform thereby benefiting from their processes (using github as the delivery mechanism) and their community momentum. For advanced practitioners, we will engage communities and additional ELIXIR aligned projects who are creating content and have specific expertise. In both cases a significant focus is placed on community-driven content contribution.
The RDMkit, an output of ELIXIR CONVERGE, is a website-based toolkit designed to guide life scientists and data stewards in their efforts to better manage their research data. RDMkit comprises a set of RDM best practice guidelines, organised as web pages, that are reachable via a navigation structure of topics.
Each guideline page contains a description of the topic, including considerations, possible solutions, as well as a filtered view of a table of relevant tools and resources linked to entries in the ELIXIR Registries (bio.tools, FAIRsharing, TeSS). It also includes a hyperlink to the tool or resource homepage where available. The contents are generated and maintained by the ELIXIR community. The RDMKit’s underlying technical infrastructure has been established using GitHub and comprehensive community contribution and editorial processes have been put in place. A full discussion of the RDMkit is given in CONVERGE deliverable 3.1.
The GitHub-hosted FAIR CookBook is an output of the ELIXIR-driven FAIRplus project with contributions by ELIXIR Nodes, pharma and complements/connects the Pistoia Alliance's ‘FAIR ToolKit’.
The FAIRCookbook collates protocols organized according to the FAIR elements and a persona-based browsing. This includes how to FAIRify a number of exemplar datasets, putting the FAIR principles in practice. Recipes are contributed by ELIXIR members, pharmas and SMEs via collaborative ‘book-dash’ events.
Both the RDMkit and the FAIR Cookbook have been designed from the start for long term sustainability by the Nodes. The technical infrastructure is lightweight and off the shelf with a light hosting footprint (web and github). The editorial boards, of both resources, is made up of node representatives, as well as pharmas and SMEs.
The primary sustainability task is content managed, which is a distributed responsibility across all aspects of ELIXIR coordinated by the editorial boards. As with 99% of the ELIXIR resources, the RDMkit and the FAIR Cookbook will be sustained by the Node membership, including those participating in the current platforms and communities, and external partners. Responsibility for the RDMkit lies with the Node governance already in place.