The Open Metadata Exchange: A decentralized network supporting FAIR (meta)data practices and persistence for science gateways

The integration of FAIR (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reusability) standards in both open science and open education holds transformative potential for advancing STEM education and broadening participation in scientific research. Despite the well-documented benefits of the open practices associated with FAIR standards, adoption remains limited. Science gateways are a particularly attractive area for FAIR implementation, as they form a distributed network of user-friendly web portals supporting access for domain researchers to high-performance computing, scientific data, software, and open educational resources. This paper introduces the Open Metadata Exchange (OME), a decentralized network of repositories enabling the sharing of content metadata and resources. The OME network provides a novel solution to FAIRification challenges associated with the distributed nature of science gateways by directly addressing resource persistence in the context of sustainability and decommissioning.