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Machine-Centric Science
Machine-Centric Science episodes
- A1.2: The protocol allows for authentication and authorisation where necessary
A brief dip into the world of HTTP auth. The Authorization request header. The WWW-Authenticate response header. Basic authentication. Bearer-based authentication. Authenticating securely. Shared secrets versus asymmetric encryption (for non-repudiation).
6 min - A1.1: The protocol is open, free and universally implementable
Protocol versus implementation. HTTP, SMTP, Zulip.
4 min - A1: (Meta)data are retrievable by their identifier using a standardized communication protocol
You want to avoid protocols with limited implementation, poor documentation, and, when possible, components involving human intervention.
It may not be possible to provide secure access through a fully mechanized protocol like HTTP, for example, for highly sensitive data. However, the protocol must be clear and explicit in the metadata, whether it involves a verbal request, email, telephone number, Slack username, et cetera.
The important thing is that the communication protocol for how to access is explicit and clearly defined in the metadata, whether fully mechanized or not.
3 min - F4: (Meta)data are registered or indexed in a searchable resource
The goal here is leverage: increasing the ratio of machine action to user action in getting to the data that they want. Otherwise, your data is technically findable, but it's going to require a lot of user action. They might have to do a full data download, scan through a full table, scroll through a long webpage, and it's unlikely that they're going to actually find what they need, because they're just not going to put in that much effort. So you really want indexing. You want this leverage to have your machine help do some of the action that a user might otherwise do.
7 min - F3: Metadata clearly and explicitly include the identifier of the data they describe
Literature references with and without DOIs. Tables of data in articles with and without unique identifiers in each row for what that row is about. The magic of including identifiers in the metadata you share.
The Data Catalog (DCAT) Vocabulary: https://www.w3.org/TR/vocab-dcat-2/
4 min - F2: Data are described with rich metadata
Kinds of metadata - "intrinsic" (machine-defined or machine-controlled; immutable) and "extrinsic" (user-defined or user-controlled). Other-than-technical interoperability. "Quality" in the eye of the beholder / data consumer. Analogy to web-browser feature detection, and application to search engine "rich results".
4 min - F1: (Meta)data have globally unique, persistent identifiers
- HTTP URLs
- orcid.org, doi.org, uniprot.org
- archival resource keys (ARKs)
- meta-resolvers: identifiers.org, n2t.net
7 min - What to expect from this podcast
A rundown of what I'm planning: FAIRdowns, inside the Box, and FIP calls, oh my!
2 min
About Machine-Centric Science
From the publisher's feed
Stories about the FAIR principles in practice, for scientists who want to compound their impacts, not their errors.