New Self-Assessment Tool to Promote FAIR Research Software

In partnership with the Netherlands eScience Center, the ARDC is pleased to announce the initial release of the FAIR Software Checklist, a self-assessment and badging tool encouraging the uptake of the FAIR Principles for software. 

If you write software for researchers and would like to demonstrate how your work is aligned with the principles of findability, accessibility, interoperability and reusability (FAIR), we encourage you to use the tool to assess your software’s FAIRness and badge your repository with a FAIR indicator. 

This is the first tool to incorporate the FAIR Principles for Research Software, released in May 2022 as an endorsed recommendation of the Research Data Alliance (RDA). 

These principles were produced with input from over 500 participants in a joint working group of the RDA, FORCE11 and Research Software Alliance, and endorsed by the RDA as a formal recommendation in May 2022. 

Dr Tom Honeyman, Solutions Architect at the ARDC, led the development of the national agenda for research software in Australia. “It’s vital that research software can be seen and built upon. This is so research can move faster, and it’s central to research integrity that software is readily available. It’s been a main goal of the ARDC’s research software agenda for Australia, and this new, easy-to-use self-assessment tool is a great way of achieving it.” 

Jurriaan Spaaks, Senior Research Software Engineer at the Netherlands eScience Center, said, “As the Dutch national center for research software, we pride ourselves in championing all matters related to research software. 

“This FAIR Software Checklist aims to guide the research software community towards improved practices regarding findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability. Research software developers can help the cause by filling out the checklist and putting the resulting badge in their project’s README. This way, their project becomes an ambassador for better FAIR practices, while promoting transparency.” 

The FAIR software checklist tool is available now, and we encourage researchers who write software to try it out and provide feedback:

The ARDC is funded through the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) to support national digital research infrastructure for Australian researchers.