A Methodology for Progressively Developing and Harmonising FAIR Vocabularies for Global Interoperability of Geochemical Data

A Methodology for Progressively Developing and Harmonising FAIR Vocabularies for Global Interoperability of Geochemical Data

Lesley Wyborn¹, Marthe Klöcking², Alexander Prent³, Lucia Profeta⁴, Angus Nixon⁵, Kirsten Elger⁶, Manja Luzi-Helbing⁶, Rowan Browlee⁷, Steven Richard⁸, Kerstin Lehnert⁴, Rebecca Farrington⁹, Dominik Hezel<sup>10

1</sup>Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia
²Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen Germany
³AuScope Ltd, Utrecht The Netherlands
⁴Columbia University, Pallisades, New York, United States
⁵ The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
⁷Australian Research Data Commons, Canberra, ACT, Australia
⁸University of Arizona, Tuscon, Arizona, United States of America
⁸University of Arizona, Tuscon, Arizona, United States of America
⁹AuScope Limited, Melbourne , Victoria, Australia
¹⁰Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, Frankfurt Germany

Abstract

OneGeochemistry is an international initiative formed to enable global sharing of geochemical data. Unfortunately geochemical datasets are notoriously heterogeneous and are collected by thousands of researchers/research groups on a diversity of samples (rocks, minerals, meteorites, fluids, gasses, etc) using hundreds of analytical techniques across multiple geoscience disciplines. Hence, achieving international consensus on key concepts and definitions requires considerable time and effort.

To ensure compliance with FAIR Interoperability Principle I2 (viz. (meta)data to use controlled vocabularies that also follow FAIR principles), multiple local vocabularies are emerging online that often replicate similar concepts.

To achieve a balance between meeting current demands for FAIR-compliant vocabularies versus time required to reach international agreement, OneGeochemistry has developed a three-tiered approach (local, community, international) towards making semantic resources FAIR and machine actionable:
1) We encourage data providers with locally defined vocabularies or other resources to make them FAIR, available online from a reputable vocabulary service and ensure each term has a persistent identifier (SKOS/RDF);
2) We encourage groups with similar topics to begin harmonising on concepts/definitions and publish these as community resources;
3) We raise awareness of groups harmonising and making semantic resources FAIR-compliant at an international level, particularly those with endorsement from International authoritative groups (e.g., Scientific Unions/Associations/Societies/Commissions).

As convergence takes place towards internationally-agreed terms, the size of the community able to share (meta)data in machine-to-machine environments grows. Existing URIs initially used at either a local or community level could be redirected towards internationally endorsed definitions and concepts as these become available.

Biography

Lesley Wyborn is an Honorary Professor at ANU at the NCI and at the Research School of Earth Sciences. She also works part time for ARDC. She had 42 years’ experience in Geoscience Australia (GA) in mineral systems and geochemistry research, as well as in data science/data management. Since leaving GA in 2014 has continued her research into many aspects of Data Science as applied to geochemistry, geophysics, data quality, versioning of datasets, as well as the development of transparent high-performance national-scale datasets for use in HPC environments.