Speaker
Description
In discussions about FAIR software, primary use cases often center on making research accessible to other participants. The focus is usually on metadata. Metadata are used to make artifacts findable and accessible for search engines. This is structured in machine-readable file formats, based on YAML or JSON, and acts as intermediaries for researchers searching for artifacts. However, these formats aren't always user-friendly, which might discourage researchers from engaging with the content, despite its potential value.
Presenting metadata in a human-readable form, like a webpage, could help all researchers get an overview of a project. While there is an existing website generator named ya2RO [1] that automates generation using a minimal YAML description, it relies on a new YAML scheme. This scheme requires users to learn and a community to maintain it. Without an active user community, there's a high risk that the scheme becomes outdated or fails to meet user needs. An established file format like CFF [2] for feeding metadata into a webpage generator could ensure continuous updates and leverage an existing user base for initial adoption. This concept led to the creation of 'cff2pages'. The tool generates a single webpage displaying the title, authors and their affiliations, keywords, persistent identifier, license, and an abstract from the CFF. This page can easily be integrated into CI/CD pipelines for creating GitHub/GitLab Pages or webpages for internal repositories within institutions.
Currently, cff2pages is in a prototype stage, encouraging early adopters to provide use cases for wider integration into research systems. It offers potential enhancements, such as incorporating semantic web-oriented metadata (e.g., RO-Crate[3]) or integration into workflows like HERMES [4]. To suit institutional publication processes, the template is customizable to match the corporate design of specific institutions.
- A. F. Pavel and D. Garijo, “Ya2ro: A tool for creating Research Objects from minimum metadata,” 2023.
- S. Druskat, J. H. Spaaks, N. Chue Hong, R. Haines, and J. Baker, “Citation File Format (CFF) - Specifications,” 2021.
- S. Soiland-Reyes et al., “Packaging research artefacts with RO-Crate,” 2021, doi: 10.48550/arXiv.2108.06503
- Meinel, M., Druskat, S., Kelling, J., Bertuch, O., Knodel, O., & Pape, D. hermes (Version proof-of-concept) (Computer software)
