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About this Playbook Template

This FAIR Research Data Management Playbook is designed as a template to help organizations implement best practices in managing research data following the FAIR principles. It’s a practical guide to make research data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR) across various stages of the data lifecycle.

Why Use This Template?

The playbook provides a flexible structure that you can adapt to your organization’s specific data management needs. It’s not a strict policy document but a living resource that can evolve with your projects, data types, and technologies.

How to Reuse and Customize this Playbook?

  1. Clone or Fork the Repository
    You can start by forking or cloning this repository to your own GitHub account or download it directly for use within your organization.

  2. Edit the Template to Suit Your Needs
    • Modify (based on the audience in mind) or expand the existing “Plays” to reflect your organization’s data management processes and guidelines.
    • Customize the resources, examples, and workflows to match the tools, repositories, and policies used by your team.
    • Add or remove steps based on the types of data your organization manages.

  3. Contribute to the Playbook
    This template is designed to grow. We encourage you to share your modifications or suggestions by submitting a pull request or creating a discussion on how to improve the playbook.

  4. Leverage as a Training Resource
    Use this playbook as a learning tool for training staff and new project members on the importance of FAIR principles and the specifics of your data management policies.

  5. Example Plays This examples are designed for anyone involved with research data – from producing, using data, and supporting any projects that involve research data and other digital objects. This playbook should help:
    • Improve understanding of FAIR principles and requirements from various stakeholders (publishers, funders, project consortium etc.).
    • Provide consistent guidelines across different projects, subdomains and data types.
    • Provide a mechanism to create a living and agile playbook for Naturalis so we can adapt to new methods, data types, and technologies.

Inspiration from the FAIR Cookbook

Much like the FAIR Cookbook, this playbook follows a “recipe” approach, guiding you step-by-step through different stages of research data management. Each “Play” provides you with:

  • Clear, actionable steps for tasks like data creation, preservation, or sharing
  • When to use clearly articulate when each play should be utilized in the research data management process
  • Key considerations to ensure compliance with FAIR principles
  • Links to resources and external tools to help you along the way

Sharing Your Playbook

Once customized, your organization can share its own version of the playbook with internal teams, collaborators, or publicly on GitHub to foster knowledge exchange on FAIR data management practices.

Acknowledgement

The initial version of this playbook was created for Naturalis Biodiversity Center’s internal Research Data Management and FAIR implementation initiative. The following people were involved in the process: Sharif Islam, Niels Raes, Elza Duijm, Martin Rücklin, Chantal Huijbers, Arjan Schieven, Rutger Vos

The code for the Playbook is available in the DiSSCo Github

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