{"id":1159,"date":"2026-09-22T14:16:44","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T13:16:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.fairsharing.org\/?p=1159"},"modified":"2026-09-22T16:44:52","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T15:44:52","slug":"fairassist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.fairsharing.org\/?p=1159","title":{"rendered":"FAIRassist: registry of FAIR benchmarks and metrics"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Although more than 30 FAIR assessment and assistance tools have emerged in recent years (https:\/\/fairassist.org\/tools<\/a>), they often exhibit widely different results due to the lack of transparency<\/a> about what is actually being checked and how it is measured. FAIR is intentionally expressed as a set of high-level principles rather than a technical standard, allowing different research communities to implement FAIR according to their own practices. However, the credibility of the results produced by existing tools and the transparency of the methods used, are major recognised challenges. They are being tackled in a highly collaborative manner by two specific FAIR-focused European task forces (https:\/\/eosc.eu\/eosc-association\/eosc-task-forces<\/a>) and implemented by the OSTrails project (https:\/\/ostrails.eu<\/a>). OSTrails has delivered a common framework<\/a> (the Assess-IF) to achieve harmonisation in the behaviour of FAIR assessment tools by providing components that enable the definition of what FAIR means in a given context, how it should be measured, and how results should be weighted, interpreted, and potentially improved. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

FAIRsharing supports this framework via our FAIRassist<\/a> component, where all community-defined conceptual components are registered, along with the standards, databases, and policies needed to interpret them. This allows FAIR assistance and assessment tools to utilise transparent, community-vetted definitions of FAIR, while also providing context-specific guidance before, during, and after assessment. FAIRassist acts as a centralized commons to discover and track resources for FAIR measurement and guidance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

FAIRassist.org is composed of two parts: a list of FAIR evaluation <\/strong>tools and a registry. The Tools section of FAIRassist<\/a> is a tabular list of automated evaluation engines as well as manual questionnaires and checklists. It provides an overview of the current ecosystem of FAIR evaluation tools to help RDM professionals understand how FAIRness is measured and practically improved. Tool developers can complete a simple form to register new evaluation tools or update existing entries as software evolves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The registry<\/a> component serves as a trusted commons for Assess-IF conceptual components. Powered by FAIRsharing, it provides curated, machine-actionable records assigned with persistent identifiers (DOIs). The registry catalogs all three conceptual components of the Assess-IF:<\/p>\n\n\n\n