Cross-Domain Interoperability Framework

Overview

This document provides a summary of the proposed Cross-Domain Interoperability Framework (CDIF). In simple terms, CDIF is a set of recommended best practices for using a coordinated set of domain-agnostic standards – most often as specific subsets or profiles of those standards – to support a core set of functions for cross-domain FAIR reuse.

This idea has emerged over the past several years as a result of several different efforts to identify a practical approach to implementation of the FAIR principles. These have been based on the exploration of a number of different use cases in different domains, but the use cases have not been comprehensive in scope, and much remains to be done to make the work broadly representative. Ultimately, CDIF would become a set of guidelines or best practices for enabling FAIR data sharing, both within and across domains and infrastructures, at a level of specificity which is meaningful to systems developers and implementers. At this point, CDIF is still a proposed framework. This paper intends to document the current thinking, so that further work can be more easily undertaken.

The goal of CDIF is – to the greatest extent possible – to build on standards and models which are already in existence, and which have been widely adopted, or are likely to be widely adopted. CDIF does not represent a new standard itself, but is intended to be a set of guidelines for using existing standards and models in a coordinated way, to ensure a degree of FAIR exchange in as automated a fashion as possible.

Other technical protocols and specifications are needed for the implementation of FAIR, notably the basic protocol stack (currently represented by proposals around the FAIR Digital Object Framework) and the standards and models which are used as standards within specific domains and infrastructures. It is when data and metadata are shared across such boundaries that a lingua franca such as CDIF becomes necessary.
This document will describe the benefits of adopting this approach from an implementation perspective, and will describe those standards and models which have been suggested as candidates for the implementation of the full set of FAIR principles at a functional level.

The summary table at the end of the document shows the list of proposed standards, broken out according to functions based on the FAIR principles. URLS to the relevant sites are provided.