[Feature]: [FRSM-10] Are the formats used by the data consumed or produced by the software open and a reference provided to the format?

D5.2 p18+p27

Detailed Description

The use of open file formats for data improves the reusability and understandability of the software.

Domain-agnostic comments

This metric is inherently difficult to implement as at present there is no standardised or common method for describing the data / file formats used by a piece of software in a machine-readable way. Community standards commonly define the data formats in use in a discipline, and resources such as FAIRsharing.org provide a curated catalogues of standards.

CESSDA comments

CESSDA documents its approach to open data standards in CMA7 - Standards Compliance.

Context

I1: Software reads, writes and exchanges data in a way that meets domain-relevant community standards. I2: Software includes qualified references to other objects.

Possible Implementation

domain-agnostic


requirements	Software source code, Software documentation
method	Check the software source code and documentation for references to the data formats used.
essential	The documentation describes the data formats used.
important	The data formats used are open.
useful	A reference to the schema is provided.

CESSDA


requirements	Software source code, Software documentation
method	Check that data content used by CESSDA services is machine-readable
essential	The data formats used by the software are noted in the documentation.
important	The data complies with a recognised standard used by the CESSDA community (typically DDI/XML, RDF/XML, TURTLE, JSON-LD or SKOS).
useful	Where a public API is used to access the data content, it complies with the OpenAPI standard.

softwaresaved / fuji