Work Plans: A Tool for Suggesting Implementation Strategies to Improve the FAIRness of Data Repositories

Improving the findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability (or ‘FAIRness’) of digital resources has become increasingly important since the publication of the ‘FAIR Principles’ in 2016. As an advocate of the FAIR Principles, GO FAIR US has developed a methodology for assessing the FAIRness of repositories. Through involvement in a myriad of data landscaping projects across health research and the geosciences, GO FAIR US’s analytical approach has been tested, improved, and demonstrated to be a valuable practice. Crucially, GO FAIR US’s approach focuses on the need to gather feedback from repositories and from the stakeholders involved in said repositories. In this paper, we describe a way to organize and present the rich data collected into Work Plans that clearly convey changes recommended through the FAIRness assessment process.