FAIR Principles

There is an ongoing effort to make open metadata of VHL information sources available aligned with the FAIR principles: Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable, that is, to promote the ability of digital assets to be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable.

Recognizing that adherence to FAIR is an objective yet to be achieved, we list below a self-evaluation on the level of adherence that open metadata of bibliographic description of technical-scientific documents in health sciences have in relation to each principle, using the following color legend: High, Medium and Low.

To be Findable:

• F1: (Meta)data are assigned a globally unique and persistent identifier
  • A unique identifier field is present in each VHL bibliographic record.
  • Other global document identifiers such as DOI and author identifiers such as ORCID are also part of the metadata.
  • The VHL does not yet provide a URI resolution service based on its unique identifier or based on available global identifiers.
• F2: Data are described with rich metadata (defined by R1 below)
  • VHL metadata is described in the Data Dictionary.
  • Data elements are not sufficiently enriched for automatic computer recognition and processing.
• F3: Metadata clearly and explicitly includes the identifier of the data they describe
  • The ID is a top-level, mandatory field in each record’s metadata. When available, metadata is associated with full text, through URI and/or global identifier.
• F4: (Meta)data are registered or indexed in a searchable resource
  • The metadata of each record is indexed and searchable directly in the VHL search engine after publication.
  • Metadata for each record is available to Google and Google Scholar indexes by sitemaps.

To be Accessible:

• A1: (Meta)data are retrievable by their identifier using a standardised communications protocol
  • Metadata of individual records, as well as of record collections, can be obtained using the VHL Search Interface API.
• A1.1: The protocol is open, free and universally implementable
  • The VHL search interface APIs are open, free and use universal protocols for information retrieval in the web.
• A1.2: The protocol allows for an authentication and authorization procedure, where necessary
  • Metadata is accessible to the public without the need for authentication and authorization.
• A2: Metadata is accessible even when data is no longer available
  • The metadata of the VHL information sources describes bibliographic records and is retained even if access to the digital asset (journal article, report, audio, video, presentation, etc.) is no longer available.
  • Metadata is stored on highly available database servers, apart from the digital assets themselves.
  • BIREME reserves the right to remove metadata, including access to the digital asset, if it infringes legal rights. See more in Terms and Conditions of Use.

To be Interoperable:

• I1: (Meta)data use a formal, accessible, shared and broadly applicable language for the knowledge representation.
  • VHL uses JSON Schema as its internal metadata representation and offers export to other popular formats such as XML, CSV and RIS.
  • The JSON and XML formats, for example, follow the data schema specific to the VHL search platform, requiring data mapping according to the Data Dictionary itself for the development of algorithms for extracting, transforming and loading data
• I2: (Meta)data use vocabularies that follow FAIR principles
  • VHL open metadata does not yet follow the “FAIR Data Point” metadata specification.
• I3: (Meta)data include qualified references to other (meta)data
  • VHL open metadata does not yet follow the specification required for cross-referencing between metadata resources.

To be Reusable:

• R1: (Meta)data are richly described with a plurality of precise and relevant attributes
  • Each record contains a minimum of mandatory terms.
  • Data elements are not sufficiently enriched for automatic computer semantic recognition and processing.
• R1.1: (Meta)data are released with a clear and accessible data usage license
  • The use of VHL open metadata considers acceptance of the Terms and Conditions of Use.
  • Metadata does not yet contain machine-readable license information
• R1.2: (Meta)data are associated with detailed provenancea
  • The open metadata describes bibliographic references, allowing the identification of the scientific journal, its authors and afiliations, whenever possible. It is also possible to identify institutional authorship in case of technical reports and manuals.
  • The open metadata of the VHL still does not follow the specification described for the provenance and transformation flow traceability.
• R1.3: (Meta)data meet domain-relevant community standards
  • The VHL includes the metadata of the main standards for bibliographic description of documents.
  • Open metadata is available in JSON Schema, XML, CSV and RIS format.
  • The JSON and XML formats, for example, follow the data schema specific to the VHL search platform, requiring data mapping according to its Data Dictionary for the development of algorithms for extracting, transforming and loading data.