Goals#

FairDM’s goals reflect our commitment to empowering research communities with modern, FAIR-compliant data portals. These goals are grounded in our Constitutional Principles, which guide all design and development decisions.

  1. Empower highly-specialised research communities to declare their own domain-specific data structures and schemas, and to deploy their own research data portals.

    FairDM is designed to be flexible and extensible, allowing researchers to create portals that meet the specific needs of their research communities. This aligns with our Domain-Driven, Declarative Modeling principle, which emphasizes declarative configuration over custom code. By providing a set of pre-defined templates, design patterns, and components, FairDM enables researchers to quickly and easily create portals that are tailored to their specific requirements.

  2. Simplify the process of declaring and distributing reusable data structures

    FairDM provides a set of pre-defined data structures and fields that are commonly used in research data management. These structures can be easily extended and customized to meet the specific requirements of individual research communities. By simplifying the process of defining data structures, FairDM enables researchers to focus on their data and research, rather than the technical details of the portal.

  3. Facilitate the deployment of research data portals

    FairDM provides a set of pre-defined templates, design patterns, and components that enable the rapid development and deployment of research data portals. Following our Opinionated, Production-Grade Defaults principle, the framework provides sensible conventions that work out of the box. By following a consistent design and development approach, FairDM ensures that all portals built using the framework are user-friendly, accessible, and interoperable. This standardization makes it easier for researchers and data users to navigate and interact with different portals, enhancing the overall user experience and promoting data sharing and collaboration.

  4. Foster collaboration and networking within individual research communities

    At the heart of FairDM lies a profound commitment to community building and fostering collaboration among researchers. Our web framework is not just a technical solution; it’s a catalyst for empowering research communities to thrive together. FairDM provides a platform to unite researchers, innovators, and experts from various fields, facilitating collaboration and knowledge exchange.

  5. Credit where credit is due

    Proper attribution of credit for contributions towards scientific data collection and publication is vital for the integrity of the scientific record. It is also vital to the wider adoption of FairDM as a research data management tool. FairDM provides a robust system for tracking and attributing contributions to research data, ensuring that all contributors receive the recognition they deserve.

  6. Community Driven

    Research data portals should ultimately be powered by the research community they serve. FairDM is focused on functionality that allows researchers to take ownership of their data and collaborate with others in a secure and transparent environment. By fostering a sense of community ownership, FairDM empowers researchers to share their data, insights, and expertise with the wider scientific community.