The theme for the 2023 year’s workshop is “FAIR for NASA Data”. The NASA SMD Information policy (SPD-41a) says that NASA data should be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR), but what does that really mean in detail? The FAIR principles have gained broad acceptance around the world, but data repositories and providers still struggle with the details of their implementation. The goal of this year’s workshop is to begin to develop more detailed guidance for SMD data repositories and data providers on how to make their data more FAIR.

The workshop is hosted by the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) at the Williams Village Conference Center at the University of Colorado. The event space includes a large conference room for presentations and breakout/discussion rooms to accommodate planned activities. Each room will accommodate virtual attendance options for those who cannot attend in person.

This is an open meeting geared towards researchers, Big Data teams, and archivists at the Science Mission Directorate (SMD) Data Repositories along with missions and community members working in these areas.

Key Objectives

• Improve understanding and align interpretation of the specific 15 FAIR principles in the NASA context.
• Identify areas of collaborative and integrated effort for adhering to the principles (e.g., governance processes) and where more work is needed; begin to lay out a roadmap.
• Identify where to develop common guidelines for key FAIR practices such as identifiers and licenses for data.
• Identify consistent and effective means of user engagement since it is the users who ultimately decide if data are FAIR.