Process for Making a Model FAIR

Here, you will find guidance on how this initiative seeks to make models more FAIR (learn more about the FAIR principles here). This effort will contribute a public good to the modeling community, increasing transparency and building trust in many of the highly cited models that are frequently used (and built upon) in new research. While the initiative is primarily focused on the first two steps outlined below, it will open the door for replication and robustness checks and other associated opportunities.

Each publication (and associated model) originally selected for this initiative has been assessed based on the five FAIR criteria: (1) Publicly accessible code, (2) License for the code, (3) DOI for the code, (4) Good documentation, and (5) Clean code.

Steps in the process

1. Original assessment of the FAIR criteria

   See Assess a Model for more information.

   • This is done by the CoMSES team for the preliminary models for this initiative.
   • See the Models page for each model’s assessment score.

2. Make the model FAIR across the five criteria

   See How to Make FAIR for more information.

   • Periodically re-assess the five FAIR criteria of the model you’re working on.
   • Contact fair@comses.net or comment on the model’s issue in the coordination repository when this process is complete.

3. Replication check

   • Can you reproduce the originally published results?

4. Robustness check

   • Run sensitivity tests and parameter sweeps.
   • Explore opportunities to use high-throughput computing.

5. Get your FAIR share

   • Once you have made a model FAIR, get credit for your work. The appropriate output depends on what was involved and what you found.
   • Add the model’s GitHub repository and DOI to your CV as outputs of your academic activities.
   • Share your experience and lessons learned through a blog post in RofASSS (Review of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation).
   • If your replication or robustness analysis produces a research finding, consider a manuscript for the Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation or Socio-Environmental Systems Modeling. Examples include articles published in JASSS 6(4), JASSS 8(3), and JASSS 12(4).

If you have any questions, please contact us at fair@comses.net.