A 15 minute presentation covering the terms4FAIRskills project from conception in Jan 2019 until now. This presentation covers the methodology, model iteration and terminology building. Presented at RDA VP17 in the Professionalising Data Stewardship session.

1. terms4FAIRskills
https://terms4fairskills.github.io/
Peter McQuilton, PhD
On behalf of the terms4FAIRskills community

2. terms4FAIRskills – What are we trying to
solve?
• Training resources for Data Stewards are fragmented
• A heterogeneous mass of content can be found online (tutorials,
lectures, online course, events, webinars, slides…)
• No information is available about the specific competencies required
or conferred from each training content

3. Scope: to build a terminology for the competencies, skills and knowledge necessary to make data
FAIR and to keep it FAIR
Potential use:
● Discovery: facilitate the annotation, search and evaluation of FAIR-enabling materials (e.g.
training) and resources
● Design: assist the creation and assessment of stewardship curricula
● Training: help trainers who teach FAIR data skills, researchers who wish to identify skill gaps in
their teams
● Formalisation: enable the definition of job descriptions and CVs with recognised, structured
competencies
The terms4FAIRskills initiative

4. The terms4FAIRskills community

5. Timeline
January 2019
Initial concept of terms4FAIRskills was born
May 2019
1st in person workshop (Paris, FR)
- convert the FAIR4S table headings into a
communal spreadsheet
- define parent/child, synonyms

6. • By AngusWhyte, DCC
• Stewardship skills to deliver FAIR data from
projects
• And organisational capabilities for sustaining
FAIR data across projects
• 59 competences in 9 groups
FAIR4S framework for data stewardship competencies
https://www.eoscpilot.eu/sites/default/files/fair4s_eoscpilot_skills_framework.pdf

7. Timeline
October 2019
May 2019
2nd in person workshop (The Hague, NL)
- Assess the terminology
- Get everyone up to speed with editing an
ontology
- OWL file with 4 types:
- Activity
- Knowledge
- Skills
- Aptitude
Core development team (PMQ, AL, YLF)
- Use ROBOT to convert the spreadsheet to an
OWL file
- Use Protégé to refine relationships and build
the hierarchy

8. Timeline
September 2020
EOSC Co-creation fund
- Sept 2020 – Feb 2021
- PMQ, YLF, LM

9. • EOSC Secretariat Co-creation award July 2020
• To continue the development of the FAIR Skills Terminology with our
annotation and coordination groups to create a v0.1 of the terminology
• Using at least two real-world training dataset for a use case to drive
development to ensure a broad and pragmatic initial spread of terms.
• Terms will be refined via iterative annotation of training materials.
term4FAIRskills & EOSC

10. Standing on the shoulders of giants
Terminology Date released URL
EDISON 2017 https://edison-project.eu/edison/edison-data-science-framework-
edsf/
CASRAI RDM 2017 https://casrai.org/rdm-glossary/
FAIR 4S 2019 https://www.eoscpilot.eu/sites/default/files/fair4s_eoscpilot_skills_f
ramework.pdf

11. Timeline
September 2020
Hackathon
December 2020
Refining the model:
- Designed a new core model
- Developed new competency models
- Assessing all terms
- Collating training material to annotate
- Finalising Semaphora tool
EOSC Co-creation fund
- Sept 2020 – Feb 2021
- PMQ, YLF, LM

12. Timeline
February 2021
Final hackathon
- Improving the terminology
- Attaching terms to the FAIR principles
- Assessing all terms
- Writing tool and annotation documentation
- Planning final EOSC Co-creation annotatathon
- Annotating more online training material with
Semaphora
Receiving feedback
- Annotating online training materials with
Semaphora
- Removing terms
- Adding synonyms
- Adding new terms based on keywords
Hackathon
January 2021

13. • Use cases: organise and retrieve training content on
• ELIXIR training materials (via TeSS)
• RDA/CODATA Summer Schools (FAIRsFAIR)
• Methodology & tools
• Iterative model design process
• WebProtégé collaborative editing where possible
• Everything open, stored on Github, for the community
• Improvement of Semaphora annotation tool (derived from B2NOTE)
terms4FAIRskills methodology

14. Annotation via
Annotate web content
with Chrome plugin
Derived from B2NOTE
W3C Web Annotation
Model
JSON-LD/RDF

15. Annotation via
Semantic tags
Free-text keywords
Comments
Assertions/Nanopub

16. Annotation via
Semantic tags
Free-text keywords
Comments
Assertions/Nanopub
CAPTURE DOMAIN EXPERT KNOWLEDGE
TEST AND IMPROVE ITERATIVELY ONTOLOGY

17. Progress and outputs

18. • Spreadsheet translated into an OWL/RDF file and
placed on GitHub
• Plan to continue to refine the terms and model via
interactive hackathons as part of the EOSC Co-
creation award
• Summary: 243 terms
• Some definitions, synonyms and very few relationships
September 2020

19. Learning
medium
Activity
Aptitude
requires
Knowledge
Skill
is about
FAIR
contributes to
FAIR4S
Core model v1

20. • Redeveloped the model
• Removed need for ‘knowledge of’, ‘skill on’ style
redundancy
• Assessment and integration of CASRAI RDM
• Summary:746 terms
• 346 from CASRAI
• Incorporates review of EDISON
• New relationships between the terms
December 2020

21. Core model v2

22. • Redeveloped the model again
• Merged FAIR 4 Skills terms from ’Activity’ class
• Narrowed scope
• Summary:605 terms
• 262 from CASRAI
• Removed a number of RDM terms
• Removed redundancy (added synonyms)
January 2021

23. Activity
(e.g. Metadata creation)
Learning Medium
(e.g. slides with
exercises)
Technical Concept
(e.g. Metadata or FAIR
principle 1.1)
Confers knowledge about
/Requires knowledge about
Confers practical skill about
/Requires practical skill about
Person
(e.g. data steward)
Relates to
Soft skill
(e.g. good
communicator)
Has aptitude for
Has/Wants skill about
Has/Wants knowledge about
Has/Wants competency in
Requires/Improves personal attribute
Requires/Improves personal attribute
Core model v3

24. Data stewardship
activity
(e.g. Metadata
creation)
learning_medium
(e.g. slides with
exercises)
Data stewardship
technical concept
(e.g. Metadata)
Confers knowledge about
/Requires knowledge about
Confers practical skill about
/Requires practical skill about
role
(e.g. data steward)
Relates to
Data stewardship
soft skill
(e.g. good
communicator)
Has aptitude for
Has/Wants skill about
Has/Wants knowledge about
Has/Wants competency in
Requires/Improves personal attribute
Requires/Improves personal attribute
Data stewardship
guideline
(e.g. FAIR principle
1.1)
Supports implementation of
Contributes to the implementation of
Has/Wants knowledge about
Core model v4

25. April 2021 - today
• Outputs:
• Terminology
• Built iteratively
• 612 classes, 262 of which imported from CASRAI
• Open, traceable, FAIR, follows best practice
• https://github.com/terms4fairskills/FAIRterminology
• Semaphora annotation tool development
• Chrome plug-in
• Adapted to work on Google Slides, HTML
• Proof of concept
• In process of commercialisation

26. T4FS – what happens next?
• EOSC Report
• Continue development – all on GitHub
• Continue to reach out to re-use and import terms from existing terminologies
Potential use cases:
• ELIXIR FAIR Cookbook
• ELIXIR TeSS
• FAIRsFAIR Competency Center
• FAIRsharing’s educational FAIRassist.org
• You? More info: terms4FAIRskills@codata.org or
pmcquilton@gmail.com