OSTrails

Open Science Plan-Track-Assess Pathways

OSTrails aims to advance processes and instruments for planning, tracking, and assessing scientific knowledge production beyond state-of-the art supporting research to reach the EOSC vision of Web of FAIR data and service Horizon Europe’s open by default policy. OSTrails will deliver methods, tools, services, guidance and training necessary to realise the Plan-Track-Assess stages to put FAIR (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability and Reusability) into practice. OSTrails aims to:

Plan: Increase the efficacy of Data Management Plans (DMPs) and shift the landscape, towards more researcher-centric, educative, and integrated, full data lifecycle “machine actionable” DMPs (maDMPs). 
Track: Establish an open, interoperable and high-quality Scientific Knowledge Graph ecosystem supporting different types of research products, their relationships and metrics used to evaluate them, making them machine actionable (maDOs). 
Assess: Deliver modular and extendable FAIR tests, which makes the metrics “machine actionable” (maFAIRTest), complemented by user guidance, and that can be implemented in tools assisting any stage of the research life cycle.

By connecting the building blocks across the Plan-Track-Assess stages, OSTrails will provide end-to-end solutions that serve:

  • researchers and support personnel to realise FAIR at any stage of the research life cycle, and for relevant digital objects, planning for optimal FAIRness when designing the DMPs, and revising and executing it iteratively; and 
  • research funding organisations, research organisations, publishers and other stakeholders to monitor and drive the improvement of the quality of data management for any shared, funded and published research products. 

CSC will contribute to coordinating the national pilot in Finland which develops one machine actionable maDMP template for the use of 60 institutions and their researchers. As part of the Finnish national pilot, CSC will focus on data interoperability. 

Funded by the European Union logo.