Concrete, tool-by-tool steps to satisfy each FAIR principle using VRC Würzburg infrastructure.
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FAIR is the exit standard. Anything that leaves your personal Green Room into a shared or published zone must be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable. This SOP gives the concrete VRC action for each principle — not the theory. Tick the matching items in FAIR_self_check.md before each gate (G1 leaving the Green Room, G2 publishing).

Findable — concrete VRC steps

  • Apply the metadata template at upload time, not later. Templates live in the cRDM Nextcloud share and at github.com/CoreUnitRDM/MetaDataTemplates; attach the filled Excel/CSV to the project’s data/metadata/ folder.
  • Use one identifier everywhere: the same subject_id / sample_id appears in the filename (SOP file-naming), the metadata table, and the Labfolder entry.
  • At publication, get a persistent identifier (DOI) via WueData (JMU institutional repository, <FILL IN URL>) or a domain repository — never rely on a Nextcloud link as the citable handle.

Accessible — concrete VRC steps

  • Store shared data in a Nextcloud group folder with role-based access (requested from the cRDM helpdesk), not in personal shares or public links.
  • Authentication is via your JMU/Informatikcloud identity (SSO); MFA is mandatory for sensitive zones.
  • Keep metadata discoverable even when data is restricted: deposit the descriptive record openly and route the data itself through the correct controlled channel (EGA / NFDI4Health Study Hub for human-derived; UKW for patient-identifying — see the GDPR SOP).

Interoperable — concrete VRC steps

  • Convert to open standard formats as your primary data: OME-TIFF/OME-Zarr (imaging), FASTQ→BAM/CRAM/VCF (omics), CSV/Parquet over XLSX, JSON/MD over Word. Proprietary originals stay in data/raw/ untouched.
  • Use controlled vocabularies, not free text: MIxS/ENVO (microbiota), OME-XML/REMBI (imaging), SNOMED CT / LOINC / ICD (clinical), ChEBI/RRID (wetlab). Look up terms via the EBI OLS.
  • Code missing values explicitly with standard tokens (see Metadata Template Suggestions) — never leave a cell blank.

Reusable — concrete VRC steps

  • Declare a licence before publishing: data → CC BY 4.0 or CC0; code → MIT / Apache-2.0 / GPL-3.0.
  • Make the pipeline reproducible: raw → primary → processed must regenerate from src/ alone, versioned in VRC GitLab (public code mirrored to github.com/CoreUnitRDM or Zenodo after publication).
  • Ship documentation alongside data: README (the map), the data dictionary, and the DMP travel with the project (see the project bootstrap).

VRC tool map at a glance

| FAIR need | VRC tool | |—|—| | Storage + access control | cRDM Nextcloud group folders (coreunitrdm.biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de) | | Documentation | Labfolder ELN (via RZ), README, data dictionary | | Metadata templates | CoreUnitRDM MetaDataTemplates + Nextcloud metadata app | | Code / provenance | VRC GitLab (+ GitHub/Zenodo mirror at publication) | | Compute | JupyterHub + HPC Julia I/II / HPC Bioinformatics | | Preservation | RZ Archive Server (10-year retention) | | Publication + DOI | WueData / Zenodo / domain repository | | DMP | RDMO (JMU) or DataPLAN |

Related: SOP — RDM Lifecycle · FAIR self-check · GDPR & sensitive data SOP · Metadata Template Suggestions.

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