FAIR Assessment Practices

The poster presents FAIR assessment experiences in the context of the two NFDI consortia KonsortSWD and BERD@NFDI, employing the established Research Data Alliance's FAIR Data Maturity Model (RDA-FDMM) and the F-UJI Tool, an automated solution. RDA-FDMM, a manual technique, is more comprehensive, while the automated F-UJI tool effectively detects areas of improvement in metadata presentation that automated means can address. Our experiences highlight the need to examine both machine-readable as well as non-machine-readable elements and acknowledge automated tools' limitations, while valuing their insights. As the research ecosystem advances, metadata representation should be made increasingly machine-readable. We recommend a "FAIR by design" approach from the beginning to ensure alignment with FAIR principles in project outcomes. Continuous assessments during a project’s lifetime promote ongoing research data infrastructure improvements within the NFDI consortia context, contributing to NFDI infrastructure innovation and optimization.