FAIR4RS WG subgroup community consultation March 2021

This document is the result of the four subgroups of the FAIR for Research Software working group, which is working under the Research Data Alliance, the Research Software Alliance, and FORCE11. These subgroups independently examined the FAIR principles in relation to software.

FAIR4RS-subgroup1 started with the original FAIR principles (Wilkinson et al. 2016) and worked to
1. determine what part of the original FAIR principles apply as is to research software;
2. determine what part of the original FAIR principles doesn't apply at all to research software; and
3. determine what part of the original FAIR principles applies to research software, but with a different definition or  different details, starting with the original FAIR principles themselves, and not relying on work done by others to  apply them to research software, such as by Lamprecht et al. (2020).
This led to (the preprint Katz et al. 2021 and the opinion paper Katz et al. 2021) that includes:
● a discussion of the differences between software and data,
● an initial straightforward translation that was collected from the FAIR4RS-subgroup1 participants;
● a discussion about the nuances of the currently defined rules in the context of research software;
● a proposed set of principles adapted to the FAIR research software case;
● a comparison of those proposed principles with the FAIR data principles;
● a set of gaps in our current infrastructure and existing practices that make implementing the proposed principles difficult; and
● a discussion of where the proposed principles fall short of a larger world of fully-open, high-quality, sustainable software developed and maintained by recognized and rewarded people in the context of full-reproducible research.
We refer to these proposed principles as FAIR4RS-subgroup1.

FAIR4RS-subgroup2 looked at the work of FAIR4RS-subgroup1 and provided feedback and comments related to other digital objects that FAIR4RS-subgroup1 did not consider, such as training materials and workflows, to understand how general the FAIR4RS-subgroup1 work was. We refer to this work as FAIR4RS-subgroup2.

FAIR4RS-subgroup3 examined the complexity of defining research software, by gathering definitions of research software and related terms in the literature, and by compiling examples and discussing whether they exemplify research software This was then followed by two workshops with the intention of clarifying the scope of the FAIR  principles by identifying for which software artifacts the FAIR principles should be applied. The concept of exclusive  and inclusive definitions regarding the usage of the term “Research” were further discussed, as well as further discussion around a small number of examples of research software. This discussion and the preceding compilation work were synthesised as a report portraying a complex landscape of software uses and software examples in research.
Furthermore, an analysis of existing definitions resulted in a better understanding of the complexity of types of software and types of roles software has during the research process. The subgroup identified an important controversy in academia, which is by itself a step forward for the FAIR software roadmap.

FAIR4RS-subgroup4 started with the rewritten FAIR principles for research software (Lamprecht et al. 2020) and worked to:
● identify other work (FAIR4RS WG, 2020) that helped to inform the application of FAIR principles to research software, and examples of software that helped to understand the characteristics of FAIR software;
● discuss and agree how the spirit of the FAIR foundational principles could be interpreted and applied to research software;
● determine which of the rewritten FAIR principles in Lamprecht et al. 2020 applied as written, applied if rewritten, or did not make sense to apply to research software; and
● suggest where further discussion is needed to rewrite, add or delete FAIR guiding principles for research software.
This was undertaken using a survey that sought feedback and reflection on the rewritten FAIR principles in Lamprecht et al. 2020. A reading list of other work was compiled which identified potential blindspots, including a lack of attention to relevant work from domains outside of life sciences and physical sciences. The responses to the survey were synthesised to produce a reinterpretation of the FAIR foundational principles for software, as well as
identifying common themes and specific criticisms of the Lamprecht et al.2020 proposed guiding principles for  research software. We refer to this work as FAIR4RS-subgroup4.

We additionally consider two other documents/groups that have worked in this space. First, the principles proposed by Lamprecht et al. 2020 in “Towards FAIR principles for research software” which we refer to in the remainder of the report as Lamprecht, and second, the recommendations in "5 recommendations for FAIR software," which we refer to as 5RECS. Then, we compare the different recommendations, ask specific questions, and discuss possible options. We also show two figures that attempt to explain the different aspects of FAIR for Research Software. This document’s main goal and this community consultation period is to get community feedback on these options and the figures. After this comparison, discussion of options, figures, and references, a detailed table of the recommendations appears as an appendix.

Files included in this deposit:

• File 1 .docx with all the comments
• File 2 .pdf with all the comments
• File 3 .pdf wording suggestions accepted all other comments deleted

This deposit is not a final outcome. It is work in progress.