Making Biomedical Research Software FAIR: Actionable Step-by-step Guidelines with a User-support Tool.

Area of Science:

• Biomedical research
• Software engineering
• Data science

Background:

• The FAIR for Research Software (FAIR4RS) Working Group proposed aspirational principles for research software reuse.
• Existing FAIR4RS principles lack practical, step-by-step instructions for researchers.
• There is a need for actionable guidelines to implement FAIR principles in biomedical research software.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop the first actionable, step-by-step guidelines for biomedical researchers to achieve FAIR4RS compliance.
• To introduce the FAIR Biomedical Research Software (FAIR-BioRS) guidelines.
• To present a supporting workflow and software tool (FAIRshare) for implementing these guidelines.

Main Methods:

• In-depth study of the FAIR4RS principles.
• Thorough review of current practices in research software management.
• Development of a practical implementation workflow and user-friendly software application.

Main Results:

• Introduction of the FAIR Biomedical Research Software (FAIR-BioRS) guidelines.
• Development of a streamlined workflow for implementing FAIR-BioRS.
• Creation of FAIRshare, an open-source application to simplify FAIR software and data sharing.

Conclusions:

• The FAIR-BioRS guidelines provide practical, actionable steps for biomedical researchers.
• The FAIRshare tool and workflow effectively support the implementation of FAIR principles for research software.
• These resources aim to optimize the reuse of biomedical research software.