Guidelines for the development of a Data Stewardship and Governance Framework for the Agricultural Research Federation (AgReFed)

This document is a product of the Agricultural Research Data Cloud (AgRDC) project led by Federation University Australia. The intent of the guidelines herein is to enable the movement from AgRDCproject phase to a sustained federated community (The Agricultural Research Federation, AgReFed) with the shared goal of improving the sharing and reuse of agricultural data including datasets, metadata and data related products. This document provides guidelines for the development of the AgReFed Data Stewardship and Governance Framework (the Stewardship Framework), a socio-technical system that (once enacted): • Brings independent organisations together to make strategic and technical decisions about data sharing and • Will guide and be implemented byagricultural data providers. This Stewardship Framework includes a suggested: • Technical and Information architecture to improve the findability, discoverability, accessibility and reusability (FAIRness of) agricultural data through AgReFedand • Social architecture, including: • Organisational form, being a Federation comprised of autonomous Data Provider Communities; • A governance model comprising a Federation Council and Technical Committee, whose membership is made up of representatives of the Data Provider Communities; • Policies that will be produced by the Federation Council and Technical Committee, to guide both Data Providers and the Federation; • Roles performed by community members to govern and operate AgReFed; and • Processes to ensure long term availability of FAIR agricultural data through AgReFed. This document is presented in two parts: 1.An overview of the Guidelines for the development of a Data Stewardship and Governance Framework, including what you need to know and do as a provider community/potential provider community 2. Further details on the proposed Social, Technical and Information architecture to improve the findability, discoverability, accessibility and reusability (FAIRness of) agricultural data through AgReFed.