FAIR Data Point

Working Draft,

This version:
https://specs.fairdatapoint.org/v1.2
Latest version:
https://specs.fairdatapoint.org
Previous Versions:
FDP specs v1.1
Feedback:
l.o.boninodasilvasantos@utwente.nl
Issue Tracking of the specifications:
GitHub
Reference Implementation:
https://github.com/FAIRDataTeam/FAIRDataPoint/
Issue Tracking of the reference implementation:
GitHub
Editors:
Luiz Olavo Bonino (University of Twente, Leiden University Medical Center, GO FAIR International Support and Coordination Office)
Kees Burger (Leiden University Medical Center)
Rajaram Kaliyaperumal (Leiden University Medical Center)

Abstract

This document provides specifications for the FAIR Data Point (FDP). The document includes architecture of the core component, metadata structure and schema, API and validation rules. 

Current version

This revised version of the FDP specifications replaces the URIs of the FDP Ontology from PURL.org to W3ID.

Status of this document

This is a public copy of the editors’ draft. It is provided for discussion only and may change at any moment. Its publication here does not imply endorsement of its contents by any organization. Don’t cite this document other than as work in progress.

This document was produced by the FAIR Data Team.

1 Introduction

FAIR Data Point (FDP) is a metadata service that provides access to metadata following the FAIR principles [FAIR-principles]. FDP uses a REST API for creating, storing and serving FAIR metadata. FDP is a software that, from one side, allows digital objects owners/publishers to expose the metadata of their digital objects in a FAIR manner and, for another side, allows digital objects' consumers to discover information (metadata) about offered digital objects. Commonly, the FAIR Data Point is used to expose metadata of datasets but metadata of other types of digital objects can also be exposed such as ontologies, repositories, analysis algorithms, websites, etc.

Many different repositories and their digital objects should interoperate in order to allow increasingly complex questions to be answered. These repositories and their content should be interoperable in order for client applications to autonomously (re)use them. However, interoperability happens at different level, including syntactical and semantical interoperabilities. The FDP aims at addressing these interoperability issues by providing:

The main goal of the FDP is to establish a common method for metadata provisioning and accessing and, as a consequence, provide to client applications a predictable way of accessing and interacting with metadata content. To fulfill this goal, this document contains a set of specifications to help developers to extend the functionality of their applications so these applications can also behave as a FAIR Data Point.

1.1 Purpose

The purpose of this document is to specify the FAIR Data Point. This document includes requirements, architecture and design of the FDP as well as the metadata schemas used. This specification is primarily intended to be a reference for developers willing to add the FDP functionality into their existing applications or develop their own FAIR Data Point implementation. In order to better understand this specification, a knowledge of RDF, LDP, SHACL and REST APIs is required. 

1.2 Document conventions

Conformance requirements are expressed with a combination of descriptive assertions and RFC 2119 terminology. The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in the normative parts of this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119. However, for readability, these words do not appear in all uppercase letters in this specification.

All of the text of this specification is normative except sections explicitly marked as non-normative, examples, and notes. [RFC2119]

2 Overall Description

The basis for any infrastructure is its suitability to the issues it should address. Therefore, the first step is to identify these issues. One common approach for this identification is to investigate current practices that could benefit from a supporting infrastructure. Once we analyse these practices, we can elicit the requirements for the infrastructure. In this document we list a number of data usage scenarios that represent regular practices in data-intensive domains. These usage scenarios have been gathered through interactions with a variety of representative stakeholders in different domains. These stakeholders represent data producers, data consumers and providers of both infrastructure and services for supporting data activities.

2.1 Usage Scenarios

From the different semantic interoperability projects we have been and are involved in, the following usage scenarios have been identified. These usage scenarios do not represent one particular situation in a real project but depict data interoperability-related situations that we experienced in a number of different projects. From these scenarios we derived a set of requirements for metadata storage and accessibility infrastructure and they also guided the design and development of the solution.

2.1.1 Data discovery

A researcher needs to find datasets containing data about a given subject, e.g., proteins that are activated in specific tissues, polution level in a given region or infrared observation of a particular galaxy; integrate the discovered data with other pre-selected datasets and analyse them. In another situation, the researcher needs to know which biobanks carry a given type of biosample (e.g., blood samples) from patients possessing a specific disease (e.g., Alzheimer's disease) taken from a patient registry whose onset age was lower than 45 years old. These data users need to use a straightforward search application that allows them to find the required information. However, the search application first needs to have indexed information about existing datasets wherever their location.

2.1.2 Data access

Once a data user/consumer finds where the needed datasets, including the information about their licenses and access protocols, the user wants to access the data, retrieving it or send an algorithm to analyse the data. In many situations the data user will integrate many different datasets. To carry out these integrations, the user needs to know in which formats, structure the data can be accessed and which access methods are available. This information comes in the form of metadata. In order to facilitate the usage of metadata, the method with which the metadata will be accessed should be common in all different metadata sources and a common representation technology should be used for the metadata.

2.1.3 (Meta)Data publication

An organization is running a project in which data is being created. As the data will be used during the project for analysis and may also be useful for other users, the group would like to publish them in a way that allows potential users of the data to retrieve information about the datasets (metadata), data search engines to index the datasets' metadata, and users to has access to the data. Some of the produced datasets have an open license but others have more restrictive licenses. All these metadata should be available so that potential data users would have enough information to assess whether the data described in the metadata fits their needs.

2.1.4 Publishing other types of content

An organization is running a project in which different types of deliverables will be created. One group is developing a piece of software, other group is working on a controlled vocabulary while the third group will generate a number of reference documents. The organization would like to publish information about these materials so others could discover and reuse them.

3 Architecture

From the usage scenarios, we have identified a need for a metadata provisioning infrastructure that we call FAIR Data Point (FDP). The FDP has the following goals:

Based on these goals, Figure 3.1 depicts the general architecture of an FDP. In this architecture, the FDP exposes its functionality to the users through an application programming interface (API). In our reference implementation, besides the FDP itself we developed a FDP web client, which connects to the FDP API and allows human users to interact with the application through a web-based interface.

FDP Architecture

Figure 3.1 High-level architecture of the FAIR Data Point.

Figure 1 also depicts the FDP's internal components, namely the Metadata Provider, Access Control, Metadata Schemas and the RDF Metadata Store.

4 Metadata

The FAIR principles give special attention to metadata. In fact, all principles relate to metadata in at least one aspect. Metadata can be defined as data that provides information about other data. Here we extend this notion to define metadata as information about other digital objects. This information includes descriptions about the origin, structure, provenance, rights and obligations or other characteristics of digital objects. The FAIR Data Point's metadata approach follows this idea of supporting the creation of metadata about different types of digital objects. The first object to provide metadata about is the FDP itself. When a client interacts with a service, it should know what it is dealing with. Therefore, the FDP provides metadata about itself and, from that point on, the client can navigate its metadata content to discover the other metadata records.

The FDP uses the W3C's Data Catalog Vocabulaire (DCAT) version 2 [DCAT] model as the basis for its metadata content. Figure 4.1 depicts the FDP extensions to the DCAT model.

FDP metadata structure

Figure 4.1 FDP extensions to the DCAT model

In DCAT, Resource represents entities that can be described by a metadata record. Since it has been defined as an abstract class, it is not intended to be used directly. We should use one of its subclasses, such as Dataset or Data Service instead. Dataset represents a collection of data while Data Service represents services accessible through an interface (API) that serve datasets. Catalog, a subclass of Dataset, represents aggregations of metadata records about digital objects. For instance, a Catalog may contain references to the metadata records of Datasets.

The FDP extendes the DCAT model by adding the concept of FAIRDataPoint as a specific type of data service that serves metadata catalogs and metadata records. The DCAT extensions and other FDP-specific concepts and relations are defined in the FDP ontology (using the namespace prefix fdp-o). In the FDP ontology, the FAIR Data Point is represented by a sub-class of the concept of MetadataService. Figure 4.1 only depicts the properties that are not already inherited from Data Service and Resource.

With the definition of the FDP as a type of metadata service that serves metadata catalogs, the relation between the Metadata Service and dcat:Catalog is represented by the predicate fdp-o:metadataCatalog. Following the DCAT approach of providing qualified relations between resources, the fdp-o:metadataCatalog is defined as a sub-property of dcat:Relationship having fdp-o:MetadataService as its domain and dcat:Catalog as its range.

An implementation of the FDP specifications MUST minimally provide the metadata records of the MetadataService and the metadata records of the other types of resources MUST be grouped in at least one Catalog.

Since the FDP supports the provisioning of metadata about different types of digital objects and the relations among these metadata records can be customized, each FDP installation may have a different structure. For instance, the FDP reference implementation is pre-loaded with the structure of metadata about FAIR Data Point → Catalog → Dataset → Distribution. Another FDP could have a different metadata structure: FAIR Data Point → Catalog → Semantic Artefact. With this flexibility, a client application would not know how to navigate the FDP metadata content unless it follows all URIs in the metadata, which may be extensive. Therefore, the FDP MUST describe its own navigation structure. This navigtaion information MUST be provided by using the Linked Data Platform (LDP) containment predicates ldp:contains or ldp:hasMemberRelation. This information MUST be present in every metadata record that leads to other metadata records.

The following RDF turtle code shows an example of Metadata Service metadata record with navigation information.

@prefix dct:   <http://purl.org/dc/terms/> .
@prefix fdp-o: <https://w3id.org/fdp/fdp-o#> .
@prefix ldp:   <http://www.w3.org/ns/ldp#> .
<https://fairdatapoint.org/app> a fdp-o:FairDataPoint
  dct:title "Demonstration FAIR Data Point";
  dct:conformsTo <https://www.purl.org/fairtools/fdp/schema/0.1/fdpMetadata>;
  dct:description "This FAIR Data Point deployment is used for demonstration of the application and to allow the navigation through its metadata content. The metadata presented here is also for demonstration purposes only and not necessarily describe properly their related resources.";
  dct:hasVersion "1.0" ;
  dct:license <http://rdflicense.appspot.com/rdflicense/cc-by-nc-nd4.0>;
  dct:publisher <https://purl.org/fairdatapoint/app#publisher>;
  fdp-o:metadataIdentifier <https://purl.org/fairdatapoint/app#identifier>;
  fdp-o:metadataIssued "2020-05-29T09:55:08.580Z"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime>;
  fdp-o:metadataModified "2020-09-30T11:17:43.008Z"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime>;
  fdp-o:metadataCatalog
    <https://purl.org/fairdatapoint/app/catalog/3dde263d-0a7c-4f2a-9813-ccb3a51f70a8>,
    <https://purl.org/fairdatapoint/app/catalog/508d3c96-8106-49d2-910c-13706aca75e3> ,
    <https://purl.org/fairdatapoint/app/catalog/6e43c568-c6fa-41c8-a88a-7ee4c85035af> ,
    <https://purl.org/fairdatapoint/app/catalog/a46aa445-3be0-4db8-8968-3338d1061a47> ,
    <https://purl.org/fairdatapoint/app/catalog/a91d3db7-fe83-4de1-b678-fe1b0c82f2f1> .

<https://purl.org/fairdatapoint/app/catalog/> a ldp:DirectContainer ;
  dct:title "Catalogs" ;
  ldp:membershipResource <https://fairdatapoint.org/app> ;
  ldp:hasMemberRelation fdp-o:metadataCatalog ;
  ldp:contains
    <https://purl.org/fairdatapoint/app/catalog/3dde263d-0a7c-4f2a-9813-ccb3a51f70a8> ,
    <https://purl.org/fairdatapoint/app/catalog/508d3c96-8106-49d2-910c-13706aca75e3> ,
    <https://purl.org/fairdatapoint/app/catalog/6e43c568-c6fa-41c8-a88a-7ee4c85035af> ,
    <https://purl.org/fairdatapoint/app/catalog/a46aa445-3be0-4db8-8968-3338d1061a47> ,
    <https://purl.org/fairdatapoint/app/catalog/a91d3db7-fe83-4de1-b678-fe1b0c82f2f1> .

In the metadata record, the FDP (f:app) has the relation fdp-o:metadataCatalog with the its catalogs. This is the parent-child relation that should be followed by a client that wants to navigate the FDP metadata structure. To explicitly inform the navigation structure, we have the code segment at the bottom of this example metadata record informing that we have a container identified as https://purl.org/fairdatapoint/app/catalog/ is the container for the https://purl.org/fairdatapoint/app (the object of the ldp:membershipResource) and it relates to its contained members using the relation fdp-o:metadataCatalog.

4.2 Metadata schemas

The FAIR Data Point suppors the user-definition of metadata schemas. This follows the acknowledgment that every application scenario may require different sets of properties to properly describe a given digital object. Moreover, the metadata records may have some relevant relationships that connect one to other. For instance, it seems straightforward to argue that, a FAIR Data Point, as a metadata service have a number of catalogs, that are used to organise the metadata records of other types of digital object, for instance, datasets.

Therefore, to improve interoperability and provide a minimal level of predictability and organisation of different FDPs, the metadata structure of the FDP starts with the metadata of itself (as a metadata service), following by the catalogs that it contains. And each catalog contains the metadata of given types of digital objects.

Below we present the metadata schemas of these two types of digital objects that are mandatory to each FDP, the FAIR Data Point and Catalog.

In the FDP Ontology the FAIR Data Point is defined as a subclass of Metadata Service, which is a sub-class of dcat:Data Service.

4.2.1 FAIR Data Point metadata

FAIR Data Point metadata schema
Ontology Property name Datatype Cardinality Description
RDF rdf:type IRI 1 The type of the object described by the metadata record which, in this case, is a FAIR Data Point. The value MUST be fdp-o:FAIRDataPoint.
DC terms dct:title String 1..* Name of the FAIR Data Point with the language tag.
dct:description String 0..* Description of the FAIR Data Point with the language tag.
dct:publisher foaf:Agent 1..* The entity(ies) (person or organization) responsible for the FAIR Data Point.
dct:language IRI 0..* The language(s) used in the metadata record.
dct:license IRI 1 The reference to the usage license of the FAIR Data Point.
dct:conformsTo IRI 1 This property points to a profile that contains the specification of the FAIR Data Point's metadata schema (in SHACL).
dct:rights IRI 0..*
dct:accessRights IRI 0..*
DCAT dcat:contactPoint vCard 0..* Relevant contact information for the FAIR Data Point.
dcat:keyword String 0..* Keyword(s) describing the FAIR Data Point.
dcat:theme skos:subject 0..* Main concept(s) related to the FAIR Data Point. In DCAT, the themes are similar to keywords in the sense of representing concepts that are related to the entity whereas keywords are natural language terms (for human consumption) and themes are concepts defined in ontologies/vocabularies, for machine consumption.
dcat:endPointURL IRI 1 The URL of the FDP API endpoint.
dcat:endPointDescription IRI 0..* The URL of the document describing the endpoint, its operations, services, parameters, etc. The description should be expressed in a machine-readable format, such as an OpenAPI or SmartAPI description.
FDP ontology fdp-o:metadataIdentifier IRI 1 Identifier of the metadata entry.
fdp-o:metadataIssued xsd:dateTime 1 Creation data of the metadata entry.
fdp-o:metadataModified xsd:dateTime 1 Last modified data of the metadata entry.
fdp-o:startDate xsd:date 0..1 Date when the metadata service started its operations.
fdp-o:endDate xsd:date 0..1 Date when the metadata service ended its operations.
fdp-o:uiLanguage IRI 0..* The user interface language(s) of the FAIR Data Point, which is different from the dcat:Resource property of dct:language that relates to the language of the metadata record.
fdp-o:hasSoftwareVersion String 0..1 Version of the metadata service software that exposes the FDP behaviour.
fdp-o:conformsToFdpSpec IRI 1 The relation should point to an URI that contains the version of the FDP specifications for which this instance of the FDP conforms to.

The navigation information for the FAIR Data Point metadata record is defined below:

FAIR Data Point metadata's navigation information schema
Ontology Property name Datatype Cardinality Description
RDF rdf:type IRI 1 The type of the object described by the navigation information metadata segment which, in this case, is a Direct Container. The value MUST be ldp:DirectContainer.
DC terms dct:title String 1..* Name of the container.
LDP ldp:contains IRI 1..* Identifier of the resources contained in this container. In this case, the identifiers of the catalogs available in this FAIR Data Point. The object of this property MUST be an instance of dcat:Catalog or a sub-class of it.
LDP ldp:hasMemberRelation IRI 1 This relation points to the URI of the custom relation/predicate used to relate the FAIR Data Point with its member catalogs. The object of this property MUST be fdp-o:metadataCatalog.
LDP ldp:membershipResource IRI 1 This relation points to the identifier of the FAIR Data Point that is related to this container. The object of this property MUST be an instance of fdp-o:FAIR Data Point.

Below we have the FAIR Data Point metadata schema defined in SHACL.

@prefix      : <http://fairdatapoint.org/> .
@prefix  dcat: <http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#> .
@prefix   dct: <http://purl.org/dc/terms/> .
@prefix fdp-o: <https://w3id.org/fdp/fdp-o#> .
@prefix  foaf: <http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/> .
@prefix   ldp: <http://www.w3.org/ns/ldp#> .
@prefix    sh: <http://www.w3.org/ns/shacl#> .
@prefix   xsd: <http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#> .

:FAIRDataPointShape a sh:NodeShape ;
  sh:targetClass fdp-o:FAIRDataPoint ;
  sh:property [
    sh:path dct:title ;
    sh:nodeKind sh:Literal ;
    sh:minCount 1 ;
  ], [
    sh:path dct:hasVersion ;
    sh:nodeKind sh:Literal ;
    sh:maxCount ;
  ], [
    sh:path dct:description ;
    sh:nodeKind sh:Literal ;
  ], [
    sh:path fdp-o:metadataCatalog ;
    sh:node :CatalogShape ;
    sh:minCount 1;
  ], [
    sh:path dct:publisher ;
    sh:node :AgentShape ;
    sh:minCount 1;
  ], [
    sh:path dct:language ;
    sh:nodeKind sh:IRI ;
  ], [
    sh:path dct:license ;
    sh:nodeKind sh:IRI ;
    sh:minCount 1;
    sh:maxCount 1 ;
  ], [
    sh:path dct:conformsTo ;
    sh:nodeKind sh:IRI ;
    sh:maxCount 1;
    sh:minCount 1;
  ], [
    sh:path dct:rights ;
    sh:nodeKind sh:IRI ;
  ], [
    sh:path dct:accessRights ;
    sh:nodeKind sh:IRI ;
  ], [
    sh:path dcat:contactPoint ;
    sh:node sh:ContactPointShape ;
  ], [
    sh:path dcat:keyword ;
    sh:nodeKind sh:Literal ;
  ], [
    sh:path dcat:theme ;
    sh:nodeKind sh:IRI ;
  ], [
    sh:path dcat:endPointURL ;
    sh:nodeKind sh:IRI ;
    sh:maxCount 1 ;
    sh:minCount 1 ;
  ], [
    sh:path fdp-o:startDate ;
    sh:datatype xsd:date ;
    sh:maxCount 1 ;
  ], [
    sh:path fdp-o:endDate ;
    sh:datatype xsd:date ;
    sh:maxCount 1 ;
  ], [
    sh:path fdp-o:metadataIdentifier ;
    sh:nodeKind sh:IRI ;
    sh:maxCount 1 ;
    sh:minCount 1 ;
  ], [
    sh:path fdp-o:metadataIssued ;
    sh:datatype xsd:dateTime ;
    sh:maxCount 1 ;
    sh:minCount 1 ;
  ], [
    sh:path fdp-o:metadataIdentifier ;
    sh:datatype xsd:dateTime ;
    sh:maxCount 1 ;
    sh:minCount 1 ;
  ], [
    sh:path dct:conformsToFdpSpec ;
    sh:nodeKind sh:IRI ;
    sh:maxCount 1;
    sh:minCount 1;
  ].

:AgentShape a sh:NodeShape ;
  sh:targetClass foaf:Agent ;
  sh:property [
    sh:path foaf:name ;
    sh:nodeKind sh:Literal ;
    sh:maxCount 1 ;
    sh:minCount 1 ;
  ].

:ContactPointShape a sh:NodeShape ;
  sh:targetClass vcard:Kind ;
  sh:property [
    sh:path vcard:hasEmail ;
    sh:nodeKind sh:Literal ;
    sh:maxCount 1 ;
    sh:minCount 1 ;
  ].

:FAIRDataPointContainerShape a sh:NodeShape ;
  sh:targetClass ldp:DirectContainer ;
  sh:property [
    sh:name "title" ;
    sh:description "Name identifying the member resources" ;
    sh:path dct:title ;
    sh:nodeKind sh:Literal ;
    sh:minCount 1 ;
    sh:uniqueLang true ;
  ], [
    sh:name "membership resource" ;
    sh:description "" ;
    sh:path ldp:membershipResource ;
    sh:nodeKind fdp-o:FAIRDataPoint ;
    sh:maxCount 1 ;
    sh:minCount 1 ;
  ], [
    sh:name "has member relation" ;
    sh:description "The predicate used in the metadata to relate the FAIR Data Point with its member catalogs." ;
    sh:path ldp:hasMemberRelation ;
    sh:nodeKind fdp-o:metadataCatalog ;
    sh:maxCount 1 ;
    sh:minCount 1 ;
  ], [
    sh:name "contains" ;
    sh:description "A set of triples, maintained by the LDP container, that lists documents created by the LDP container." ;
    sh:path ldp:contains ;
    sh:node :CatalogShape ;
  ].

4.2.2 Catalog metadata

Catalog metadata schema
Ontology Property name Datatype Cardinality Description
RDF rdf:type IRI 1 The type of the object described by the metadata record which, in this case, is a catalog. The value shoud be or type dcat:Catalog.
DC terms dct:title String 1..* Name of the catalog with the language tag.
dct:hasVersion String 0..1 Version of the catalog.
dct:description String 0..* Description of the catalog with the language tag.
dct:publisher foaf:Agent 1..* The entity(ies) (person or organization) responsible for the catalog.
dct:language IRI 0..* The language(s) used in the catalog.
dct:license IRI 1 The reference to the usage license of the catalog.
dct:issued DateTime 0..1 The date when the catalog metadata record has been created.
dct:modified DateTime 0..1 The last modified data of the catalog metadata record.
dct:conformsTo IRI 1 The specification of the catalog metadata schema (in SHACL).
dct:rights IRI 0..*
dct:accessRights IRI 0..*
dct:hasPart IRI 1..* The relation between the catalog and its items. This is the most general predicate for membership of a catalog. It is recommended to use more specific sub-properties such as dcat:dataset, dcat:catalog, dcat:service, or a custom sub-property.
dct:isPartOf IRI 1 Relation to the parent metadata. In this case the metadata service metadata.
DCAT dcat:themeTaxonomy IRI 1 A knowledge organization system (KOS) used to classify the cataloged resources that are part of this catalog. It is recommended that the taxonomy is organized in a skos:ConceptScheme, skos:Collection, owl:Ontology or similar.
FDP ontology fdp-o:metadataIdentifier IRI 1 Identifier of the metadata entry.
fdp-o:metadataIssued xsd:dateTime 1 Creation data of the metadata entry.
fdp-o:metadataModified xsd:dateTime 1 Last modified data of the metadata entry.
FOAF foaf:homepage IRI 0..1 The URL of the catalog HTML version.

Below we have catalog metadata schema defined in SHACL.

@prefix     : <http://fairdatapoint.org/> .
@prefix dcat: <http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#> .
@prefix  dct: <http://purl.org/dc/terms/> .
@prefix foaf: <http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/> .
@prefix   sh: <http://www.w3.org/ns/shacl#> .
@prefix  xsd: <http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#> .

:CatalogShape a sh:NodeShape ;
  sh:targetClass dcat:Catalog ;
  sh:property [
    sh:path dct:title ;
    sh:nodeKind sh:Literal ;
    sh:minCount 1 ;
  ], [
    sh:path dct:hasVersion ;
    sh:nodeKind sh:Literal ;
    sh:maxCount ;
  ], [
    sh:path dct:description ;
    sh:nodeKind sh:Literal ;
  ], [
    sh:path dct:publisher ;
    sh:node :AgentShape ;
    sh:minCount 1;
  ], [
    sh:path dct:language ;
    sh:nodeKind sh:IRI ;
  ], [
    sh:path dct:license ;
    sh:nodeKind sh:IRI ;
    sh:minCount 1;
    sh:maxCount 1 ;
  ], [
    sh:path dct:conformsTo ;
    sh:nodeKind sh:IRI ;
    sh:maxCount 1;
    sh:minCount 1;
  ], [
    sh:path dct:rights ;
    sh:nodeKind sh:IRI ;
  ], [
    sh:path dct:accessRights ;
    sh:nodeKind sh:IRI ;
  ], [
    sh:path dct:hasPart ;
    sh:node sh:ContactPointShape ;
  ], [
    sh:path dcat:keyword ;
    sh:nodeKind sh:Literal ;
  ], [
    sh:path dcat:theme ;
    sh:nodeKind sh:IRI ;
  ], [
    sh:path dcat:endPointURL ;
    sh:nodeKind sh:IRI ;
    sh:maxCount 1 ;
    sh:minCount 1 ;
  ], [
    sh:path fdp-o:startDate ;
    sh:datatype xsd:date ;
    sh:maxCount 1 ;
  ], [
    sh:path fdp-o:endDate ;
    sh:datatype xsd:date ;
    sh:maxCount 1 ;
  ], [
    sh:path fdp-o:metadataIdentifier ;
    sh:nodeKind sh:IRI ;
    sh:maxCount 1 ;
    sh:minCount 1 ;
  ], [
    sh:path fdp-o:metadataIssued ;
    sh:datatype xsd:dateTime ;
    sh:maxCount 1 ;
    sh:minCount 1 ;
  ], [
    sh:path fdp-o:metadataIdentifier ;
    sh:datatype xsd:dateTime ;
    sh:maxCount 1 ;
    sh:minCount 1 ;
  ].

:AgentShape a sh:NodeShape ;
  sh:targetClass foaf:Agent ;
  sh:property [
    sh:path foaf:name ;
    sh:nodeKind sh:Literal ;
    sh:maxCount 1 ;
    sh:minCount 1 ;
  ].

:ContactPointShape a sh:NodeShape ;
  sh:targetClass vcard:Kind ;
  sh:property [
    sh:path vcard:hasEmail ;
    sh:nodeKind sh:Literal ;
    sh:maxCount 1 ;
    sh:minCount 1 ;
  ].

Since only the Metadata Service and Catalog metadata are mandatory in a FDP, from the catalog on, the metadata structure of the FDP will vary from deployment to deployment. However, as the FDP is most commonly used to provide metadata of datasets, FDP's reference implementation follows the DCAT model and bundles two more metadata schemas, namely, the Dataset and Distribution metadata schemas. If the administrator of the FDP wishes, he/she can just remove these two schemas and define custom schemas as long as they are subclasses of the DCAT Resource class.

If other types of digital objects beside dcat:Dataset are used in the FAIR Data Point, the catalog metadata should contain the navigation information from the catalog to the digital object metadata, similar to the one defined between the FAIR Data Point and catalog presented in section4.2.1.

5 API

The API of the FDP follows the REST HATEOAS (Hypermedia as the Engine of Application State) guidelines by providing information so that the client is able to discover the available actions and access the resources it needs. Therefore, the client application is able to navigate through the API and its content from the information available from the content returned in each API call. This navigation information is provided through the Linked Data Platform (LDP) section as described in Section 4.1.

Since the FDP allows client applications to dynamically discover how to navigate its content, the clients only need to have the URL of the root of the FDP API, and that URL MUST provide the metadata of the FDP itself, i.e., the MetadataService metadata.

6 FDP Specification Compliance

The aim of this specification is to guide developers in implementing their own FAIR Data Points or in extending existing application with the FDP behaviours and, therefore, exposing their metadata in a FAIR way.

In order to verify whether and application behaves as a FAIR Data Point according to these specifications, the following characteristics must be present:

References

Normative References

[DCAT]
Riccardo Albertone; et al. Data Catalog Vocabulary (DCAT) - Version 2. 4 February 2020. REC. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/vocab-dcat-2/
[RDF]
Frank Manola; Eric Millher RDF 1.1 Primer. 24 June 2014. W3C Recommendation. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/rdf11-primer/
[RFC2119]
S. Bradner. Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels. March 1997. Best Current Practice. URL: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2119
[SHACL]
Holger Knublauch; Dimitris Kontokostas. Shapes Constraint Language (SHACL). 20 July 2017. W3C Recommendation. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/shacl/

Informative References

[FAIR-principles]
Mark D. Wilkinson; et al. The FAIR Guiding Principles for scientific data management and stewardship. Scientific Data, 15 March 2016. DOI: doi:10.1038/sdata.2016.18
[FDP]
Luiz Olavo Bonino da Silva Santos; Kees Burger, Rajaram Kaliyaperumal, Mark D. Wilkinson FAIR Data Point: A FAIR-oriented approach for metadata publication. 10 August 2022. Data Intelligence 2022. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1162/dint_a_00160