Journal Article

dtool and dserver: A flexible ecosystem for findable data

Holey, Hannes, Yanes, Luis, Pastewka, Lars, Hartley, Matthew, Vazhappilly, Ashwin, Sanner, Antoine, Hörmann, Johannes L., Olsson, Tjelvar S. G.

2024

Overview

Making data FAIR— f indable, a ccessible, i nteroperable, r eproducible—has become the recurring theme behind many research data management efforts. dtool is a lightweight data management tool that packages metadata with immutable data to promote a ccessibility, i nteroperability, and r eproducibility. Each dataset is self-contained and does not require metadata to be stored in a centralised system. This decentralised approach means that finding datasets can be difficult. dtool’s lookup server, short dserver , as defined by a REST API, makes dtool datasets f indable, hence rendering the dtool ecosystem fit for a FAIR data management world. Its simplicity, modularity, accessibility and standardisation via API distinguish dtool and dserver from other solutions and enable it to serve as a common denominator for cross-disciplinary research data management. The dtool ecosystem bridges the gap between standardisation-free data management by individuals and FAIR platform solutions with rigid metadata requirements.

• Publisher: Public Library of Science,Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subject: Accessibility / Application programming interface / Brokers / Data management / Data Management - methods / Datasets / Design / Documentation / Ecosystem / Ecosystem management / Ecosystems / Information management / Infrastructure / Internet / Interoperability / Metadata / Modularity / Names / Reproducibility / Reproducibility of Results / Research data management / Software / Standardization