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FAIR Data Principles

The SeqDB platform includes built-in FAIR scoring to help you make your genomic data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable.

What is FAIR?

FAIR principles ensure scientific data is machine-actionable and can be found, accessed, and reused by others.

Principle What it means
Findable Data has persistent identifiers, rich metadata, and is registered in a searchable resource
Accessible Data can be retrieved via standard protocols with clear access conditions
Interoperable Data uses shared vocabularies and standard formats
Reusable Data has clear licensing and provenance information

FAIR scoring in SeqDB

Each project has a FAIR score visible on its detail page. The score is computed from concrete checks:

Findable checks

  • Project has a title
  • Project has a description
  • Project has a release date
  • Project has at least one sample
  • Samples have geographic locations

Accessible checks

  • Files are downloadable via presigned URLs
  • File checksums (MD5) are available
  • API provides programmatic access

Interoperable checks

  • Samples use a standard checklist (ERC000011, etc.)
  • NCBI taxonomy IDs are provided
  • Standard file formats (FASTQ, BAM, CRAM, VCF)

Reusable checks

  • Project has a license (CC-BY, CC0, etc.)
  • Collection dates are provided
  • Sample metadata is complete (organism, breed, tissue, etc.)

Viewing your FAIR score

Web UI

Navigate to your project page. The FAIR score panel shows:

  • Four dimension scores (0–100%)
  • Actionable suggestions for improvement
  • Entity counts (samples, experiments, runs)

API

curl 'http://localhost:8000/api/v1/projects/NFDP-PRJ-000001/fair'

{
  "scores": {
    "findable": 0.75,
    "accessible": 1.0,
    "interoperable": 0.5,
    "reusable": 0.8
  },
  "checks": {
    "findable": {"has_title": true, "has_description": true, "has_release_date": false},
    "accessible": {"files_downloadable": true, "checksums_available": true},
    "interoperable": {"uses_checklist": true, "has_taxonomy": true},
    "reusable": {"has_license": true, "has_collection_dates": false}
  },
  "suggestions": [
    "Add a release date to improve Findability",
    "Add collection dates to samples for better Reusability"
  ],
  "counts": {"samples": 5, "experiments": 5, "runs": 10}
}

Improving your score

Suggestion How to fix
Add a project description Edit project → fill Description field
Set a release date Edit project → set Release Date
Add a license Edit project → select a license (CC-BY recommended)
Add collection dates Include collection_date in your sample sheet
Add geographic locations Include geographic_location in your sample sheet
Use a metadata checklist Select an ENA checklist when submitting samples