Pier Luigi Buttigieg
Following closely from WorldFAIR Deliverable 11.1, this deliverable introduces a set of (meta)data interoperability specifications and recommendations for policies that would ensure their meaningful implementation and development within projects such as WorldFAIR and frameworks such as the Cross-Domain Interoperability Framework (CDIF). This is a concrete step towards interoperable regional and global data spaces (in the terms technical and accurate sense) using domain and regionally neutral interoperability conventions. This is essential to power the emerging integrative, AI-augmented ecosystems such as digital twins, cloud-native solutions, and virtualisation engines.
Specifications developed in the central case study of Work Package (WP) 11 – the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission’s Ocean Data and Information System (ODIS) – were screened for their appropriateness to the cross-domain goals of WorldFAIR, and are now ready for community review in the CDIF community development space. Collectively, these specifications are referred to as “CDIF Core” and include (meta)data exchange specifications for 44 entity types (including datasets and other creative works, projects, organisations, and software) that are now available for review by other domains. These specifications are already aligned to prevailing conventions and web architectural patterns used by millions of machines worldwide (based on exchange of JSON-LD/schema.org). As such, this deliverable reports on a concrete advancement of CDIF and anticipates demonstrations of cross-work-package digital exchanges. Should these exchanges be successful and the specifications be well-managed under CDIF, a pathway to come full circle and align ODIS to CDIF is also described.
Perhaps of more importance in the long-term, this deliverable also describes, at a technical level, how the CDIF Core specifications should be managed by WorldFAIR and external implementation groups to maintain coherence and alignment, while supporting discoverable innovation. It also describes 1) how to nest domain- or regionally-specific content into the domain-neutral CDIF Core; and 2) how co-developers may feed back into the CDIF Core specifications in a principled and fully traceable way.
Following this work, WP11 will – as described in Task 11.3 – leverage CDIF Core to pursue demonstrations of cross-domain interoperability with WorldFAIR partners (particularly in biodiversity, cultural heritage, and disaster risk reduction) and/or themes to confirm the viability of the approaches described in this report.
The full report is available on Zenodo.
