The Top 10 FAIR Data & Software Global Sprint was held online over the course of two-days (29-30 November 2018), where participants from around the world were invited to develop brief guides (stand alone, self paced training materials), called “Things”, that can be used by the research community to understand FAIR in different contexts but also as starting points for conversations around FAIR. The idea for “Top 10 Data Things” stems from initial work done at the Australian Research Data Commons or ARDC (formerly known as the Australian National Data Service).
The Global Sprint was organised by Library Carpentry, Australian Research Data Commons and the Research Data Alliance Libraries for Research Data Interest Group in collaboration with FOSTER Open Science, OpenAire, RDA Europe, Data Management Training Clearinghouse, California Digital Library, Dryad, AARNet, Center for Digital Scholarship at the Leiden University, and DANS. Anyone could join the Sprint and roughly 25 groups/individuals participated from The Netherlands, Germany, Australia, United States, Hungary, Norway, Italy, and Belgium. See the full list of registered Sprinters.
Sprinters worked off of a primer that was provided in advance together with an online ARDC webinar introducing FAIR and the Sprint titled, “Ready, Set, Go! Join the Top 10 FAIR Data Things Global Sprint.” Groups/individuals developed their Things in Google docs which could be accessed and edited by all participants. The Sprinters also used a Zoom channel provided by ARDC, for online calls and coordination, and a Gitter channel, provided by Library Carpentry, to chat with each other throughout the two-days. In addition, participants used the Twitter hashtag #Top10FAIR to communicate with the broader community, sometimes including images of the day.
Participants greeted each other throughout the Sprint and created an overall welcoming environment. As the Sprint shifted to different timezones, it was a chance for participants to catch up. The Zoom and Gitter channels were a way for many to connect over FAIR but also discuss other topics. A number of participants did not know what to expect from a Library Carpentry/Carpentries-like event but found a welcoming environment where everyone could participate.
The Top 10 FAIR Data & Software Things repository and website hosts the work of the Sprinters and is meant to be an evolving resource. In May 2019, additional sprinters from the 2019 Library Carpentry-Mozilla Global Sprint contributed six new Top 10 FAIR Data & Software Things: Nanotechnology, Astronomy, Linked Open Data, Imaging, Music, and The European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). While sprints are one way to contribute, members of the wider community can submit issues and/or pull requests to the Things to help improve them or add new ones. Published versions of the Things are available via Zenodo and the DOI http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3409968.