SSH Conversion Hub - SSHOC Service Catalogue's Factsheets Series

Making data FAIR requires agreeing on common standards and procedures for data management. At this point, the social sciences and humanities (SSH) research communities lack concerted strategies in terms of data types, metadata standards and data formats.

Each community has its own established traditions. This diversity causes interoperability issues between the communities. Thus, suggesting and providing conversion solutions for recommended metadata standards and data formats used in the SSH is key to facilitate FAIRness of data, and particularly, interoperability between research communities.

What is SSH Conversion Hub?

The SSH Conversion Hub is a registry that enables researchers to convert metadata and data from one format to another. The Hub contains information about available conversion services and guidance for conversion workflows. It has both a human-readable user interface and an Application Programming Interface (API) for machines. The platform enables users to find appropriate conversion solutions, use them, refer to them, and make informed decisions about the usability of converted data.

Key features

The main goal of the Conversion Hub is providing a registry of (meta)data conversion services and encompassing links to recommendations for increased interoperability. The Conversion Hub is based on a data model developed by the SSHOC Task 3.5 team, and the Hub is built upon version 9 of CMS Drupal. Key features were implemented mainly based on either functions available in Drupal core or by integrating modules from the Drupal ecosystem.

Benefits

• Enhanced findability of existing conversion solutions helps researchers to locate and
• access existing SSH metadata and data conversion solutions.
• Versatile search options and use of vocabularies make searching solutions quick and effective.
• The Conversion Hub provides curated information.
• The data model has been aligned with the SSH Open Marketplace to allow easy integration and interoperability.