Comparison of tools for automated FAIR software assessment

This document summarises work by the FAIR-IMPACT project to examine the application and potential repurposing of three existing automated assessment tools built to assess FAIR data principles, to assess compliance with the FAIR for Research Software (FAIR4RS) principles. At the time this activity was carried out (2023), no automated assessment tools explicitly assessed the FAIR4RS principles, though there are some principles shared by FAIR data and software, in part due to the lack of metrics for FAIR software at the time. The viability of repurposing these tools is based on the similarity between the corresponding FAIR principles applied to data and research software. However, sufficient differences exist that make the direct assessment of FAIR4RS from a FAIR data perspective difficult for some of the principles. In addition, a software assessment tool that uses a different set of recommendations for software based on the FAIR principles was also examined. After the initial explorations presented in this output, FAIR-IMPACT Deliverable 5.2 was created to propose a set of metrics for assessing the FAIR4RS principles. A companion document extends one of the existing FAIR data assessment tools to provide assessments of research software against the FAIR4RS principles. This exploratory activity has now been published as a companion output to this line of work, presenting enriching background context as well as recommendations for tool developers and users towards a further development of FAIR assessment tools.