FAIRsharing record for: FAIR Principles for Research Software - Interoperable

This FAIRsharing record describes: The FAIR4RS 'Interoperable' principle states that 'I: Software interoperates with other software by exchanging data and/or metadata, and/or through interaction via application programming interfaces (APIs), described through standards'. The definitions of interoperability and reusability as defined by the FAIR Guiding Principles overlap when applied to software. To differentiate between the two, interoperability here is limited to being concerned with the capacity to exchange data between independent software (i.e., software that can be executed separately). As an example, the sense of “integrated” that applies to data (where two pieces of data combine to form new data) does not apply in the same way to software where, in a sense, all software is “integrated” with, or depends on, other software (and this concept is placed under reusability, in R2). Software also has “agency”: software calls on other software. Two independent pieces of software can be said to interoperate when the functionality exists in both to read and write or otherwise exchange data.