Here you can see a list of the most recent versions of FDO specifications documents.
Note: Click on the (+) to see more information about the Authors and Editors.
*These documents may be subsequently updated. If you would like to participate in FDOF’s internal commenting, please register to be on the FDOF’s Mailing List.
| Category | Document Title | Version | Editors | Authors | DOI (all versions) | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Core | PR Requirement Specification | PR-3.0 | G. Strawn, P. Wittenburg | I. Anders, Ch. Blanchi, Daan Broeder, M. Hellström, Sh. Islam, Th. Jejkal, L. Lannom, K. Peters, R. Quick, A. Schlemmer, U. Schwardmann, St. Soiland-Reyes, G. Strawn, D. van Uytvanck, C. Weiland, P. Wittenburg, C. Zwölf | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7781925 | This FDO Requirement Specification document specifies the criteria which digital entities need to fulfill to be accepted as FAIR Digital Objects, and need to be adhered to by all implementations that claim to be FDO compliant. The requirements are written at a level that allows for different implementations. |
| Core | Implementation of Attributes, Types,Profiles and Registries | WD-0.4 | U. Schwardmann, C. Blanchi, P. Wittenburg | C. Blanchi, M. Hellström, L. Lannom, A. Pfeil, U. Schwardmann, P. Wittenburg | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7825572 | This document describes the details that are implied by the working draft on typing from an implementation standpoint. It highlights the roles of FDOs, their PIDs, their attributes and services and registries for FDOs, that need to be established and that operate on objects. It therefore is the core document for building FDO infrastructures. |
| Core | FDO Overview | PEN-2.0 | Larry Lannom, Ulrich Schwardmann, Peter Wittenburg, Christophe Blanchi, Ivonne Anders, Claus Weiland | I. Anders, Ch. Blanchi, Daan Broeder, M. Hellström, Sh. Islam, Th. Jejkal, L. Lannom, K. Peters, R. Quick, A. Schlemmer, U. Schwardmann, Stian Soiland-Reyes, G. Strawn, D. van Uytvanck, C. Weiland, P. Wittenburg, Carlo Zwölf | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7824713 | This document is the first comprehensive overview of FAIR Digital Object specifications. It addresses a variety of aspects that have been discussed in the FDO Forum during its first two years but contains only the essentials. |
| Detail | DOIP Endorsement | PEP-1.1 | U. Schwardmann, G. Strawn, R. Quick, P. Wittenburg | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7824795 | The DOIP Version 2.0 as released by the DONA Foundation is endorsed as an important contribution to the FDO Forum specification stack. The DOIP interfacing protocol specifies how clients can interact with DOs independent of the technology used by a DOIP server and independent of the data organization chosen. | |
| Detail | Upload of FDO | PEN-1.1 | Daan Broeder, Islam Sharif, Peter Wittenburg | Christophe Blanchi, Daan Broeder, Thomas Jejkal, Islam Sharif, Alexander Schlemmer, Dieter van Uytvanck, Peter Wittenburg | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7825548 | This document illustrates the type of operations and checks that need to be done when an FDOs are being uploaded to the domain of FDOs. It also describes the type of services that can be thought of, and the scope of checks that can be carried out at different FDO levels. |
| Detail | Typing FDOs | PR-2.0 | Larry Lannom, U. Schwardmann | Larry Lannom, Ulrich Schwardmann, Christophe Blanchi, Peter Wittenburg | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7825598 | FAIR Digital Objects promote machine-actionability by requiring that each digital object be characterized using signals that will clearly hint at the potential processing steps any machine accessing it may perform. We call those signals types and this document describes the need for types and the principles that the FDO community is following in the development of a framework for creating and applying those types. |
| Detail | FDO PID Profile & Attributes | PR-2.1 | Maggie Hellström, Sharif Islam, Peter Wittenburg | Ivonne Anders, Maggie Hellström, Sharif Islam, Thomas Jejkal, Larry Lannom, Ulrich Schwardmann, Peter Wittenburg | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7825629 | The FDO Forum needs a comprehensive definition of what a FAIR Digital Object (FDO) is and what its relevant components are. The PID Profiles and the set of kernel attributes that can be used in PID Profiles are such key pillars. The purpose of this paper is to specify these two aspects in order to incorporate them in the comprehensive FDO specification paper to be written. |
| Detail | FDO Machine Actionability | PR-2.2 | Claus Weiland, Peter Wittenburg | Claus Weiland, Sharif Islam, Daan Broder, Ivonne Anders, Peter Wittenburg | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7825649 | For FDO work we need a clear definition of what is meant with the term “machine actionability”. This document includes a description of relevant terms and draws conclusions in the form of a definition for use in the FDO Forum |
| Detail | FDO Granularity | PR-2.2 | Maggie Hellström, Carlo Zwölf, Peter Wittenburg | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7825685 | Since the start of FDO concept development there has been a discussion on what attributes are needed for proper working FDOs in different contexts and what would be the difference and overlaps with object metadata such as currently used in research data-management. This document draws on previous discussions with respect to attributes stored with Handle type PIDs to facilitate easy data-management and discussions to derive a core-metadata schema for interdisciplinary work. | |
| Detail | FDO Kernel Attributes and Metadata | PR-2.1 | Daan Broeder, Peter Wittenburg, Ivonne Anders, Karsten Peters-von Gehlen | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7825692 | Since the start of FDO concept development there has been a discussion on what attributes are needed for proper working FDOs in different contexts and what would be the difference and overlaps with object metadata such as currently used in research data-management. This document draws on previous discussions with respect to attributes stored with Handle type PIDs to facilitate easy data-management and discussions to derive a core-metadata schema for interdisciplinary work. | |
| Detail | FDO Configuration Types | PR-2.1 | Ivonne Anders, Andreas Pfeil, Peter Wittenburg | Larry Lannom, Karsten Peters-von Gehlen, Ivonne Anders, Andreas Pfeil, Alexander Schlemmer, Zach Trautt, Peter Wittenburg | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7825702 | Intensive discussions within the FDO Forum revealed that there are many different ways to organize FAIR Digital Objects and many of them listed in this document are being used in daily practice. |
| General | FAIR Digital Objects Roadmap | PEN-5 | Larry Lannom, Ulrich Schwardmann, Christophe Blanchi, Ivonne Anders, Claus Weiland, Peter Wittenburg | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7824672 | This paper is not a specification but is a living roadmap document provided by the BIG & TSIG co-chairs based on the discussions on FDO specification so far and focussing on technological aspects. |
FDO Forum Document Process
For all official documents of FDOF we follow a strict process which has been adopted from IVOA/W3C (see diagram). This implies that there are essentially 3 basic steps to be taken:
-discuss documents as Working Drafts in the FDO working groups and resolve all comments
-discuss documents as Proposed Recommendations within the FDO and RDA FDODF community and resolve all comments
-decide about an FDO Recommendation by the FDO Steering Committee
We have now modified the process slightly by also opening the Proposed Recommendations to everyone interested via the website before coming to a final recommendation decision. All of these iterations cost time, since at each step a commenting phase is opened and the iterations need to go on until all comments are resolved. For a community based on voluntary work, adhering to this process for all the documents was and is a challenge.
Relationships between specifications
The diagram to the right illustrates relationships between the current (Nov 2022) 12 documents. Those marked with a red outline (FDO Specification, FDO Implementation and FDO Glossary) are important because they summarise all the work that has been done. These summaries reflect our strategic approach to address the large complex subject of FDOs by first breaking it down into manageable parts and then summarising the results. It was important that the intermediate specification and illustrating documents were written in an elaborative way to make the topics understandable for all people in the FDO Forum, and these documents were written at different moments in time. It has already been agreed that the Forum will update all documents based on the converging glossary of terms in 2023.
