A Capacity Building Program for developing FAIR skills

GO FAIR is an international, bottom-up movement dedicated to adhering as closely as possible to the FAIR Guiding Principles in the implementation of data and services as outlined in the seminal paper from 2016 (https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2016.18).

Collaborating with a broad spectrum of stakeholders since 2018, the GO FAIR Foundation (GFF, see https://www.gofair.foundation/) has developed the Three Point FAIRification Framework (3PFF) that assists communities to better roadmap their FAIR aspirations. The 3PFF provides practical “how to” guidance to communities seeking to go FAIR. The main objective is to maximize the reuse of existing implementations, improve interoperability, and accelerate convergence on standards and technologies supporting FAIR data and services. 

3PFF refers to three key decision points of FAIRification:

-        FAIR Implementation Profile: A community effort facilitated by GFF to declare the use of FAIR-Enabling Resources addressing each of the FAIR Principles.

-        Machine Actionable Metadata as a central FAIR-Enabling Resource to meet domain-relevant metadata requirements. These can be specified and extended based on general standards in Metadata for Machines (M4M) workshops

-        FAIR Orchestration of FAIR-Enabling Resources on FAIR repositories such as FAIR Data Points or as FAIR Digital Objects.

3PFF workshops are in high demand within the international community including Environmental Research Infrastructures. More than 50 workshops facilitated by the GFF have been requested by stakeholders from a broad range of research areas. There is a clear need for training additional qualified facilitators who can subsequently lead these workshops locally from within their institutions. 

For this purpose, GFF has developed a FAIR Capacity Building Programme (https://osf.io/bthf8), to provide professional and qualified training for data stewards who aim to use 3PFF methods in their daily work. The FAIR Capacity Building Programme is designed to save costs and increase independence by embedding expertise within the organization.  The programme distinguishes between facilitators and trainers.

3PFF Event Facilitators: The GFF teaches and qualifies people in the facilitation of FAIR Awareness lectures, FIP workshops and Introductory M4M workshops. The Facilitator program consists of 80 hours of training, covering lectures, hands-on skill development, and participating with and assisting qualified instructors in conducting workshops. Facilitators also will also have developed skills to guide the creation of long-term FAIR governance structures that are essential for all organizations.

3PFF Event Trainers:  The 3PFF Trainer program delivers advanced instruction on methods and tools for individuals who are already qualified 3PFF Facilitators, but who also aim to train others in running 3PFF workshops. This “train-the-trainer” program consists of additional 80 hours of training and candidates must have a minimum of one year of experience as an active GFF Qualified 3PFF Facilitator before enrolling in the Trainer Module.

The GFF runs 3PFF training courses multiple times per year for 12-25 trainees, at a cost of € 4000 per student and training module.