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Group Session July 3, 2024

VREs/Virtual Labs/Science Gateways: Defining FAIRness badges for VREs

Plenary: RDA 23rd Plenary Meeting – San José, Costa Rica

Submitted by
Sandra Gesing
Open collaborative note
Recording

Meeting objectives

The FAIR for Virtual Research Environments (VRE) Working Group has developed a valuable tool: a checklist specifically designed to assess the FAIRness of VREs. This tool acknowledges the complexities involved, such as tailoring the criteria for different target audiences (developers vs. users) and the varying levels of granularity (VREs as frameworks, services, APIs, workflows, data, and simulations). The working group operated under the assumption that VREs themselves should not only adhere to FAIR principles but also actively promote FAIRness for the digital objects they house. One proposed approach for achieving this involves a badge system. However, several key questions extend beyond the concept of badges themselves. These include:
Badge Creation: How will the badges be designed and developed?
Awarding Authority: Who will be responsible for granting these badges?
Badge Lifespan: What criteria will determine the duration of badge validity?
Following up from our session at the RDA 22th Plenary on “VREs/Virtual Labs/Science Gateways: How could FAIRness badges for providers, developers and users of VREs look like?” we plan this session as a working session to prepare a timeline and tasks for a working group we would like to apply for at RDA.

Meeting presenters

Kheeran Dharmawardena, Zhiming Zhao, Andreas Rauber

Meeting agenda

0-20 min Introduction to IG, results of the FAIR4VRE working group and the discussion from the last VRE IG meeting on badges for VREs (Sandra Gesing)

10-40 min – Breakout Groups (online and in the room) with three different topics
(Moderator online: Kheeran Dharmawardena, Moderator onsite: Andreas Rauber)
* Badge Creation: How will the badges be designed and developed?
* Awarding Authority: Who will be responsible for granting these badges?
* Badge Lifespan: What criteria will determine the duration of badge validity?

40-60 min – Report back from Breakout Groups
(Moderator Sandra Gesing)

60-90 min Group discussion
(Moderator: Andreas Rauber)
Plan tasks and timeline for the working group and prepare form for application for working group including collecting topics for the WG mission statement.

Target audience

This session is aimed at anyone who is or has been involved in using, developing or maintaining any form of online collaborative environment or their individual components.

In preparation for this meeting, attendees could refer to the notes from the previous sessions from past RDA Plenary meetings, especially the last one that started the discussion on badges for VREs. Sessions before focused more on understanding the commonalities and differences of the different VRE/SG/VL platforms from the different global regions and collaboration tools. Attendees could think about what kind of acknowledgement for work towards FAIRness would be rewarding to them.

Group Activities and Scope

VREs are synonymous with Science Gateways (SGs) in the USA and Virtual Laboratories (VLs) in Australia, and are increasingly being used to support a more dynamic approach to collaborative working across the internet. The VRE-IG will explore all aspects of existing and planned future VRE/SG/VLs with the aim of moving towards common policies and best practices, such as those now being promoted by the European EOSC, the US XSEDE and the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC).

The VRE IG acts as a longer-term organization responsible for tracking and contributing to the evolution of VRE/SG/VL technologies, particularly as they relate to data access. It will also seek to engage with those seeking to make use of these online technologies in an effort to identify the necessary technical aspects, social and community building practices, required skills, as well as governance issues and best practice required to support a more coordinated approach to the development of the collaborative environments that enable data sharing and in situ online processing.

At this meeting we focus on setting up the next working group on badges for FAIRness of VREs.

Additional links to informative material

22n Plenary VRE-IG https://www.rd-alliance.org/plenaries/rda-22nd-plenary-meeting-fully-virtual-vresvirtual-labsscience-gateways-how-could-fairness/

Short Group Status

The group is established and has existed for eight years. The VRE IG aims to act as a longer-term organization responsible for tracking and contributing to the evolution of VRE/SG/VL technologies, particularly as they relate to data access. Since the 14th Plenary we have added additional meetings between the RDA plenaries and we plan to form working groups on specific topics discussed during the plenaries. This IG will function as umbrella group for such working groups and led to the FAIR4VRE working group that has finished its work.

Estimate of the required venue room capacity

Between 60-100 seats

Applicable Pathways

Data Infrastructures and Environments - Generalist

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

Breakout 1. Tuesday, 12 November, 16:00-17:30 UTC
Breakout 3. Wednesday, 13 November, 14:00-15:30 UTC