FAIR Mappings WG Plenaries

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Group Session November 21, 2025

FAIR Mappings – What is it? How to make them? What’s in it for me?

Plenary: RDA 26th Plenary Meeting (VP26)

Submitted by

Joonas Kesäniemi

Recording

Meeting objectives

Collaborative session notes:

Open session notes

The objectives of this session are threefold: First, to provide a concise introduction to “mappings” as they are defined by the working group, then to facilitate a hands-on workshop on how to turn existing mappings FAIR, and finally to demonstrate how FAIR mappings can support the proliferation of mapping registries for increased discoverability, accessibility and re-use of mappings.

The first part of the session is aimed at anyone interested in mappings and requires no prior experience. This “FAIR Mappings 101” is rooted in the ontology work of the group and provides a convincing answer to the question “What is a FAIR mapping?” using clearly defined terms from the latest version of the FAIR Mappings terminology.

The hands-on workshop gives the participants the opportunity to get involved and to see how to apply the FAIR Mappings metadata model to real world mapping cases. The tutorial will start with a short introduction to the model followed by FAIRification demos based on mappings from the case study collection, after which the participants are provided with a way to experiment with the metadata model themselves and to engage in discussions.

The session concludes with a short demonstration of a working mapping registry that uses the mapping descriptions created during the workshop to highlight the importance of shared models for sharing mappings.

Meeting presenters

Joonas Kesäniemi

Meeting agenda

Introduction and group status update (5 min)
FAIR Mappings 101 – According the FAIR Mappings WG (20 min)
- What is a mapping?
- FAIR Mapping terminology
Hands-on workshop on creating FAIR mappings (45 min)
- Demos – FAIRification of selected cases from from the WG’s case study collection
- Interactive experimentations with the FAIR mappings metadata model / discussion
- Participants are encouraged to “Bring their own mappings”
Mapping repository demonstration (15 min)
- submission, search and re-use
Next steps (5 min)
- WG’s last months and the after WG life

Target audience

Anyone interested in mappings, anyone who’s working with mappings, and anyone who wants a concrete tutorial on how to make most of their mappings.

Group Activities and Scope

FAIR Mappings group has organized BoFs in p21 and p22 and based on the discussions and feedback collected during and between those events the statement of work for the groups was formulated and submitted for TAB review during summer 2024. The last BoF session arranged at p23 presented the concrete plans for the first outputs and initial work of the group. The group organized a roundtable meeting with RDA co-chairs to facilitate collaboration between groups in December 2024 and started its regular bi-weekly meetings in January 2025. The group was officially endorsed in February 2025. RDA Tiger project awarded the group with a grant that allows the group’s activities to be boosted by a hired external expert during 2025.

Additional links to informative material

Website:

https://mapping-commons.github.io/rda-fair-mappings/

Statement of work:

https://www.rd-alliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/FAIR-Mappings-WG-Case-Statement-TAB-revision.docx

Working folder of the group:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/11tR6hmMkBisIXeKYxEPA2evVBcQzcWzG

Presentations:

Slide deck from p25 – Group session – Towards FAIR Mappings implementation https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1NpI9NqBtdHc6aIoogEywr0ssGIQfCBpg/edit?usp=drive_link&ouid=111955347859388252834&rtpof=true&sd=true
Slide deck from p24 – Group session – Highlights from Case Studies and Initial Taxonomy https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1A3Fgo9ExUGgrc0VX85tqG-_6_Vu6b-qtcfvLTmW9mIU/edit?usp=drive_link

Slide deck from p23 – BoF – Let’s start working https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1QHUFRqigWwtgksEfp_xNtx9YQZrdw–Uiu7w3vigkr0

Slide deck from p22 – BoF – Let’s keep talking about mappings!! https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1WG7RudmIzGZEUJ7FVSsmhy8kYDEuh2YOJp9mzQgorM0

Slide deck from p21 – BoF – Let’s talk about FAIR mappings – Towards common practices for sharing mappings and crosswalks https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1S9dzhbpmfql-YyRdSlJVbewY3ARQv8QkAlv7hZ2RE5E

Short Group Status

The group was endorsed in February 2025 and first initial results were presented in a group session during P24. The case study collection currently contains around 25 published cases and starts to provide a representative set of different types of mappings. The groups is working on finalizing the next version of the ontology/terminology and results will be available before the P26. All outputs are actively being published as part of the group’s Github.io pages using tools provided as part of the group’s Github repository. First version of the FAIR Mappings metadata model was presented in P25 and the group aims to refine and finalize it well before the next plenary. The overall goal of the group is have feature complete versions of the major deliverables ready for the P26.

Applicable Pathways

FAIR, CARE, TRUST - Adoption, Implementation, and Deployment
Semantics, Ontology, Standardisation

What potential collaborations or synergies do you see between your Group/Birds of a Feather session topic and other RDA Groups or external organisations?

Scientific Knowledge Graphs – Interoperability Framework (SKG-IF) WG
Harmonised terminologies and schemas for FAIR data in materials science and related domains WG
FAIRification of Genomic Annotations WG
Alignment of multilingual vocabularies in the Social Sciences and Humanities WG

Please indicate at least (3) three breakout slots that would suit your meeting.

Breakout 3. Tuesday, 17 March, 07:00-08:30 UTC
Breakout 7. Wednesday, 18 March, 13:30-15:00 UTC
Breakout 9. Thursday, 19 March, 07:00-08:30 UTC