Metadatamanagement - How to make your data FAIR

The necessity of exhaustive documentation of research data arises from an increasing depth of scientific understanding and investigations of unknown phenomena with research teams of different areas and fields. Different methods and definitions and insufficient documentation of field work, experimental and numerical examinations lead to information loss, especially over time. To counteract this problem the scientific community aims to make research data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR). Unfortunately infrastructure, tools, personnel and acceptability for these additional steps are often missing and result in the mentioned paucity of information and data. Within the Helmholtz Association the Helmholtz Metadata Collaboration (HMC) has taken on the task of building this infrastructure to support high quality data documentation and publication throughout the entire lifecycle of research data and to raise the awareness for necessary structural changes in the wider scientific community.
One goal of HMC is the mapping of existing data management structures and demands in the different research fields of the Helmholtz Community. These fields are especially addressed with Hubs, being the connection between HMC and the specific needs of the research fields. Based on the collected information HMC will implement tools to assist scientists, data managers and IT administrators in making their research data FAIR. Furthermore members of HMC will connect with other (meta-)data initiatives to work towards necessary structural changes in the world of scientific research by e.g. defining standards.
In this poster we will discuss the FAIR principles and introduce the Helmholtz Metadata Collaboration and their tasks. Also, we will show concrete examples from the geoscientific part of Hub Energy. The Hub in which we are active.