The RDA-SHARC interest group is an interdisciplinary group set up to unpack and improve crediting and rewarding mechanisms in the data/resource sharing process. The main objective is to encourage the adoption of data sharing activities-related criteria in the research evaluation process at the institutional, national and European/international levels.
As a step forward, a FAIR sharing assessment grid has been built by RDA-SHARC IG members to be as much as possible understandable by scientists including those who are not experts in data science. The clarity and usability of this tool have been assessed through a survey which results will be used as a basis to co-construct practical evaluation tools and processes with relevant users. The input from FAIRsharing wg is essential to drive towards implementable criteria in real practise.
FAIRsharing WG has produced one of the 12 outputs recommended by RDA, encompassing: a registry of curated and interlinked records of standards (for identifying, reporting, and citing data and metadata), databases, repositories (and knowledge-bases) and data policies (from journals, publishers, funders and other organizations); and related recommendations to guide users and producers of standards and databases to select and describe these resources, or to recommend them in data policies. With a growing adoption list (a ‘live’ updated version can be found here: https://fairsharing.org/communities), the FAIRsharing WG is focusing on refining and expanding connections with other RDA IGs and WGs relevant to its mission and scope, as has already happened with several domain-specific (e.g. ELIXIR, Biodiversity, IGAD) and generic groups (e.g. Standardization of Journal Policies). The link with the SHARC IG is a natural progression, given the role FAIRsharing already plays with FAIR assessment tools.