Open Science for Plasma Technology

During recent years the number of online platforms sharing research data for re-analysis has grown strongly. Almost every subject-specific research community has realized that data sharing can lead to faster, better and more accurate further developments. In order to support science to reinvent itself, to be more dynamic and effective, it is mandatory to implement open science. Nowadays some of the main trends are to make science as open and reproducible as possible, to create repository-like platforms around subject-specific communities, where results of research can be published as datasets or reusable resources, and to make the shared data FAIR. There is an increased interest for FAIR-ification of the published research data and for providing the necessary services to generate reproducible content from and for experiments as well as numerical modelling and simulation. In order to reach the open science goal for subject-specific research communities, criteria for curation and FAIR-ification of their published data have to be established.

In this contribution, we discuss some of the challenges raised by the implementation of open science and the technical possibilities to reach this objective within the plasma technology community. Our approach in this direction is to refine the data platform for plasma technology INPTDAT (https://www.inptdat.de) by adding new features like (i) linking and enriching research metadata by means of a knowledge graph, based on a subject-specific ontology; (ii) quality assurance, reputation monitoring and reproducibility track with the aid of blockchain technology.

Within the framework of the joint project QPTDat we are about to develop these features as external services which will provide knowledge and support for the entire plasma technology community, especially for other online platforms and portals acting in this field. The Plasma Technology Ontology as a Service (PTOaaS) will support the FAIR-ification of the data, e.g. by providing a standardized vocabulary for semantic annotations. Using smart contracts, the Plasma Technology Blockchain as a Service (PTBaaS) will enable, i.a. automation of curation processes, verification of quality criteria, and reputation monitoring.