Quantifying FAIR: metadata improvement and guidance in the DataONE repository network

DataONE has consistently focused on interoperability among data repositories to enable seamless access to well-described data on the Earth and the environment. Our existing services promote data discovery and access through harmonization of the diverse metadata specifications used across communities, and through our integrated data search portal and services. In terms of the FAIR principles, we have done a good job at Findable and Accessible, while as a community we have placed less emphasis on Interoperable and Reusable. We present new DataONE services for quantitatively providing guidance on metadata completeness and effectiveness relative to the FAIR principles. The services produce guidance for FAIRness at both the level of an individual data set and trends through time for repository, user, and funder data collections. These analytical results regarding conformance to FAIR principles are preliminary and based on proposed quantitative assessment metrics for FAIR which will be changed with input from the community. The current statistics are based on version 0.2.0 of the DataONE FAIR suite. Thus, these results should not be viewed as conclusive about the data sets presented, but rather illustrate the types of quantitative comparisons that will be able to be made when the FAIR metrics at DataONE have been finalized.