Ten simple rules for making a vocabulary FAIR.

We present ten simple rules that support converting a legacy vocabulary-a list of terms available in a print-based glossary or in a table not accessible using web standards-into a FAIR vocabulary. Various pathways may be followed to publish the FAIR vocabulary, but we emphasise particularly the goal...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Simon J D Cox, Alejandra N Gonzalez-Beltran, Barbara Magagna, Maria-Cristina Marinescu
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2021-06-01
Series:PLoS Computational Biology
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009041
Description
Summary:We present ten simple rules that support converting a legacy vocabulary-a list of terms available in a print-based glossary or in a table not accessible using web standards-into a FAIR vocabulary. Various pathways may be followed to publish the FAIR vocabulary, but we emphasise particularly the goal of providing a globally unique resolvable identifier for each term or concept. A standard representation of the concept should be returned when the individual web identifier is resolved, using SKOS or OWL serialised in an RDF-based representation for machine-interchange and in a web-page for human consumption. Guidelines for vocabulary and term metadata are provided, as well as development and maintenance considerations. The rules are arranged as a stepwise recipe for creating a FAIR vocabulary based on the legacy vocabulary. By following these rules you can achieve the outcome of converting a legacy vocabulary into a standalone FAIR vocabulary, which can be used for unambiguous data annotation. In turn, this increases data interoperability and enables data integration.
ISSN:1553-734X
1553-7358