Various FAIR criteria pertaining to machine interaction with scholarly artifacts can commonly be addressed by means of repository-wide affordances that are uniformly provided for all hosted artifacts rather than through artifact-specific interventions. If various repository platforms provide such affordances in an interoperable manner, devising tools - for both human and machine use - that leverage them becomes easier. My involvement, over the years, in a range of interoperability efforts has brought the insight that two factors strongly influence adoption: addressing a burning issue and delivering a KISS solution to tackle it. Undoubtedly, FAIR and FAIR DOs are burning issues. FAIR Signposting <https://signposting.org/FAIR/> is an ad-hoc repository interoperability effort that squarely fits in this problem space and that purposely specifies a KISS solution, hoping to inspire wide adoption.

1. FAIR Signposting https://signposting.org/FAIR/
Dataverse Community Meeting, 15 June 2021
Herbert Van de Sompel, DANS, UGent
@hvdsomp
https://hvdsomp.info
FAIR Signposting
A KISS Approach to a Burning Issue

2. FAIR Signposting https://signposting.org/FAIR/
Dataverse Community Meeting, 15 June 2021
20+ Years Interoperability Efforts Related To Scholarly Objects
OAI-PMH
OAI-ORE
Memento
IIIF
info URI
Web Annotation
ResourceSync
Robust Links
OpenURL

3. FAIR Signposting https://signposting.org/FAIR/
Dataverse Community Meeting, 15 June 2021
Cartoon by Patrick Hochstenbach
The FAIR Signposting Profile is an Implementation Guideline
Signposting, since 2015

4. FAIR Signposting https://signposting.org/FAIR/
Dataverse Community Meeting, 15 June 2021
Burning Issue: Clarify How Scholarly Objects Exist on the Web

5. FAIR Signposting https://signposting.org/FAIR/
Dataverse Community Meeting, 15 June 2021
Burning Issue: Clarify How Scholarly Objects Exist on the Web

6. FAIR Signposting https://signposting.org/FAIR/
Dataverse Community Meeting, 15 June 2021
• Make it easy for machines to interact with scholarly objects on the
Web
• This is a burning issue because the lack of a uniform interface to
scholarly objects on the web requires ad-hoc platform-specific
solutions for the creation of cross-platform services
• Think of e.g. Zotero, LOCKSS, numerous APIs, …
• There’s not even a uniform way to determine the PID of a
scholarly object from the landing page
• This makes the barrier to entry for the creation of cross-platform
services high. Which tends to lead to centralization, monopolies, lack
of innovation.
Burning Issue: Clarify How Scholarly Objects Exist on the Web

7. FAIR Signposting https://signposting.org/FAIR/
Dataverse Community Meeting, 15 June 2021
• The problem has been around for a long time
• OAI-ORE (1) (2008) addressed it in a descriptive way using linked
data technology
• RO-Crate (2) (2019) addresses it in a descriptive and simpler way
using linked data technology
• The problem directly relates to
• FAIR
• FAIR Digital Object Protocol/Framework
both of which are quite on fire
Burning Issue: Clarify How Scholarly Objects Exist on the Web
(1) OAI-ORE ; https://www.openarchives.org/ore/
(2) RO-Crate ; https://www.researchobject.org/ro-crate/

8. FAIR Signposting https://signposting.org/FAIR/
Dataverse Community Meeting, 15 June 2021
• Addresses the problem in a navigational way, by providing
meaningful links (signposts) allowing machines to follow their nose to
obtain the information they are after
• Uses a KISS, standards-based REST/HATEOAS approach consisting
of:
• Typed web links (1)
• IANA-registered relation types (2) defined in formal specifications
• Recognizes the status quo - scholarly objects are represented by
landing pages on the web - but enhances it to empower machines
KISS Approach: FAIR Signposting Profile
(1) RFC8288 – Web Linking ; https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc8288
(2) IANA Link Relations ; https://www.iana.org/assignments/link-relations/

9. FAIR Signposting https://signposting.org/FAIR/
Dataverse Community Meeting, 15 June 2021
• Concrete Implementation Guideline for Signposting, indicating which
typed links to convey for each of the resources that make up a
scholarly object on the web
• Implementation targets are platforms that host research outputs e.g.
data repositories, institutional repositories, publisher platforms, etc.
• Dataverse implementation currently in Pull Request Status,
courtesy of DANS
• Two complementary approaches to provide typed links:
• Concise set of links provided by-value
• Comprehensive set of links provided by-reference
KISS Approach: FAIR Signposting Profile

10. FAIR Signposting https://signposting.org/FAIR/
Dataverse Community Meeting, 15 June 2021
Typed Links By Value (HTTP Link, HTML <link>)

11. FAIR Signposting https://signposting.org/FAIR/
Dataverse Community Meeting, 15 June 2021
HTTP Link (for resources of all media types)
$ curl -i "https://example.org/page/7507"
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 2020 19:19:22 GMT
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Length: 25414
Link:
<https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.5d23f> ; rel="cite-as" ,
<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1825-0097> ; rel="author" ,
<https://example.org/meta/7507/bibtex> ; rel="describedby"
; type="application/x-bibtex" ,
<https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/> ; rel="license" ,
<https://schema.org/ScholarlyArticle> ; rel="type" ,
<https://schema.org/AboutPage> ; rel="type” ,
<https://example.org/file/7507/1> ; rel="item" ; type="application/pdf”
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
...

12. FAIR Signposting https://signposting.org/FAIR/
Dataverse Community Meeting, 15 June 2021
HTML <link> (for HTML pages)
$ curl -i "https://example.org/page/7507"
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 2020 19:19:48 GMT
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Length: 25414
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<link rel="cite-as" href="https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.5d23">
<link rel="author" href="https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1825-0097">
<link rel="describedby" type="application/x-bibtex"
href="https://example.org/meta/7507/bibtex">
<link rel="license"
href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">
<link rel="type" href="https://schema.org/ScholarlyArticle">
<link rel="type" href="https://schema.org/AboutPage">
<link rel="item" type="application/pdf”
href="https://example.org/file/7507/1">
…

13. FAIR Signposting https://signposting.org/FAIR/
Dataverse Community Meeting, 15 June 2021
Typed Links By Reference (Link Set)
Wilde, E, Van de Sompel H. (2021) Linkset: Media Types and a Link Relation Type for Link Sets
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-httpapi-linkset/

14. FAIR Signposting https://signposting.org/FAIR/
Dataverse Community Meeting, 15 June 2021
{
"linkset": [
{
"anchor": "https://example.org/page/7507",
"cite-as": [
{
"href": "https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.5d23f"
}
],
},
…
{
"anchor": "https://example.org/file/7507/1",
"collection": [
{
"href": "https://example.org/page/7507",
"type": "text/html"
}
]
}
]
}
Link Set in application/linkset+json
Wilde, E, Van de Sompel H. (2021) Linkset: Media Types and a Link Relation Type for Link Sets
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-httpapi-linkset/

15. FAIR Signposting https://signposting.org/FAIR/
Dataverse Community Meeting, 15 June 2021
• Contributes to FAIRs, F, A, and R by informing machines
• what the persistent identifier of a scholarly objects is,
• what type of scholarly object it is,
• where and what its content is,
• where metadata that describes it is,
• which license applies to the scholarly object,
• what the persistent identifier of its author is
• Contributes to FAIRs I by providing this information
• in a uniform way
• in a way that is interoperable with the Web at large
FAIR Signposting Profile

16. FAIR Signposting https://signposting.org/FAIR/
Dataverse Community Meeting, 15 June 2021
FAIR Digital Object Protocol
FAIR Digital Objects Forum
https://fairdo.org/

17. FAIR Signposting https://signposting.org/FAIR/
Dataverse Community Meeting, 15 June 2021
FAIR Digital Object Framework
Bonino, L. (2021) FAIR Digital Object Framework Documentation
https://fairdigitalobjectframework.org/

18. FAIR Signposting https://signposting.org/FAIR/
Dataverse Community Meeting, 15 June 2021
FAIR Digital Object Framework
Bonino, L. (2021) FAIR Digital Object Framework Documentation
https://fairdigitalobjectframework.org/
• Very much looks like a Link Set

19. FAIR Signposting https://signposting.org/FAIR/
Dataverse Community Meeting, 15 June 2021
FAIR Digital Object Framework
Bonino, L. (2021) FAIR Digital Object Framework Documentation
https://fairdigitalobjectframework.org/
• Content negotiation in an abstract dimension:
• a non-existing concept
• negotiation is about actual document formats
• Content negotiation with the PID:
• assumes control over the PID
• requires further centralization

20. FAIR Signposting https://signposting.org/FAIR/
Dataverse Community Meeting, 15 June 2021
FAIR Digital Object Framework, the Signposting Way

21. FAIR Signposting https://signposting.org/FAIR/
Dataverse Community Meeting, 15 June 2021
FAIR Digital Object Framework, the Signposting Way

22. FAIR Signposting https://signposting.org/FAIR/
Dataverse Community Meeting, 15 June 2021
FAIR Digital Object Framework, the Signposting Way

23. FAIR Signposting https://signposting.org/FAIR/
Dataverse Community Meeting, 15 June 2021
FAIR Digital Object Framework, the Signposting Way

24. FAIR Signposting https://signposting.org/FAIR/
Dataverse Community Meeting, 15 June 2021
FAIR Digital Object Framework with Signposting Extras

25. FAIR Signposting https://signposting.org/FAIR/
Dataverse Community Meeting, 15 June 2021
• Achieves what the FAIR Digital Object Framework desires by:
• using links, the core ingredient of the web
• using IANA-registered link types defined in formal specifications
• conveying typed links in HTTP Link and HTML <link>
• conveying typed links in Link Sets (soon to be IETF-standardized),
which support semantic interpretation if needed
• devising a navigational approach usable by basic web clients
• not requiring standardization on metadata formats or ontologies as
is essential for descriptive approaches
• not requiring centralized infrastructure
• Bottom line: FAIR Signposting provides a KISS uniform interface for
machine interaction with scholarly objects on the Web by using
existing technology only
FAIR Signposting Profile

26. FAIR Signposting https://signposting.org/FAIR/
Dataverse Community Meeting, 15 June 2021
• Shawn Jones, Martin Klein, Harihar Shankar @ Los Alamos National Laboratory
• Michael L. Nelson @ Old Dominion University
• Simeon Warner @ Cornell University
• Erik Wilde - Axway
• QiQing Ding, Eko Indarto, Wilko Steinhoff, Vyacheslav Tykhonov, Jan van Mansum
@DANS
• Anusuriya Devaraju @ Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network
• Robert Huber @ PANGEA
• Geoff Bilder, Karl Ward, Joe Wass @ CrossRef
• David Rosenthal @ Stanford University
• Phil Archer, Dominique Guinard – GS1
• Stian Soiland-Reyes – University of Manchester
• Sarven Capadisli - Inrupt
• Jon Kunze – California Digital Library
• Patrick Hochstenbach @ Ghent University
• Luc Boruta @ Thunken
• Enno Meijer @ The Royal Library of The Netherlands
Acknowledgments

27. FAIR Signposting https://signposting.org/FAIR/
Dataverse Community Meeting, 15 June 2021
Please spread the word and provide feedback at
https://github.com/hvdsomp/signposting
FAIR Signposting
A KISS Approach to a Burning Issue
"Signposting has a
ridiculously low cost of entry
(if you serve scholarly content
over HTTP, you're already
almost there)"
-
Luc Boruta, thunken.com

28. FAIR Signposting https://signposting.org/FAIR/
Dataverse Community Meeting, 15 June 2021
Use Case: On Demand Dataset Archiving