FAIRsharing record for: FAIR Metric – A1.2 – Metadata - retrieval protocol supports auth

This FAIRsharing record describes: ### What is being measured?

If the resolution protocol supports authentication and authorization for access to restricted content.

### Why should we measure it?

A1.2 requires that the protocol used to retrieve research objects clearly describes any necessary authentication and authorisation procedures. This ensures that access conditions are transparent and that restricted content is accessed in a defined and controlled way. Optionally, if a FAIRsharing record for the hosting database is available, the evaluation first checks the declared data access conditions. If the access condition is “open” then no authentication or authorisation is required for any content within that database, and the evaluation is complete. If access is restricted or the FAIRsharing information is not known, the resolution protocol is evaluated to determine whether it supports authentication and authorisation.

If the test makes use of the FAIRsharing record, data access conditions set as 'open' can ensure a pass for completely open access databases, even if a test implementation does not recognise a particular protocol. A resource satisfies this metric if access is declared as open in FAIRsharing record metadata, or if restricted access to metadata is supported by appropriate authentication and authorisation mechanisms.

Note that identification of the FAIRsharing database record URL/DOI (so that FAIRsharing metadata may be retrieved) can be done in a variety of ways, e.g. using the FAIRsharing API to find possible matches between the identifier and registered databases, hard coding the FAIRsharing record identifier, or expecting it to be provided as a second argument to the test.