RNP participates in a national network for data sharing and open science

The National Education and Research Network (RNP) was invited to participate in the global initiative GoFair, which aims to promote open science and facilitate the sharing of scientific data. Recently, it started representing the newly formed national network GoFair.Br.

At GoFair.br, RNP and the Brazilian Institute of Information on Science and Technology (Ibict) coordinate the GoBuild branch, which aims to provide technical support for the other branches of GoFair. Other Brazilian institutions also coordinate and participate in thematic networks, such as the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), in the group dedicated to health; the federal universities of the state of Rio de Janeiro (Unirio) and Fluminense (UFF), in the nursing group, the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa), in the agriculture network, and the National Nuclear Energy Commission (CNEN).

RNP has been involved in open science initiatives since the coordination of the Research Data Repository Working Group (GT-RDP Brazil), run by the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) for the deployment of a research data repository infrastructure. It also participates in the Open Government Partnership (OGP), which brings a number of governmental guidelines for citizen participation through the expansion of access to technology.

Open science and its basic principles

The "FAIR" term was first used in an article published in 2016 in the Scientific Data magazine, and it is an acronym for the basic principles of scientific data management: findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reuse of data.

These principles emphasize the machine's ability to act, i.e., the capacity of computing systems to find, access, interoperate, and reuse data with no or minimal human intervention, since humans increasingly rely on computational support to handle the volume, complexity, and speed of data creation.

To be (re)used, data and metadata must be easy to find for both humans and computers. For this reason, metadata must be machine-readable and searchable.

Data also need to be accessible. Once the user finds the required data, they need to know how they can be accessed, possibly including authentication and authorization. Finally, they need to be integrated with other data and interoperate with applications or workflows for analysis, storage, and processing.

The ultimate goal of FAIR is to optimize the reuse of data. To achieve this, metadata and data must be well described so they can be replicated and/or combined in different configurations.

Learn more about open science and data sharing at the GoFAIR website.

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