research data management ; FAIR data principles ; legal metrology
Zusammenfassung
Digitization does not stop short of metrology, neither does the ever-increasing stream of data we need to deal with. Data producers in both research and metrology are requested to comply with various “good practice” guidelines, regulations and criteria. On the one hand, legal metrology sets strict requirements to ensure the reliability and compliance of data with legal regulations, with a focus on data quality. On the other hand, scientific disciplines working with large amounts of data have designed a set of formal criteria, known as the FAIR principles, to improve the automated processing of and access to data and metadata.
We ask: How far do these two sets of requirements overlap? Are they compatible with and/or complementary to each other? Is it possible to apply one in the context where the other was conceived? What can the two perspectives, legal metrology and research data management, possibly learn from each other?
Our critical review addresses these questions, and discusses some aspects of the FAIR principles which could be beneficial also to legal metrology in the 21st century and vice versa. To this end, we outline the characteristics of both legal metrology and research data management, and analyse similarities between them. We strive to provide the relevant context necessary to comprehensively understand the FAIR principles, and to allow for an informed answer to the question raized in the title. Finally, we argue that a focus on data availability and on data quality are similarly important aspects, which should both be highly valued. Therefore, a combination of aspects of the FAIR principles with the quality standards from legal metrology could make a true difference for future data culture.
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Zitierung
Biskup, T., Lübbert, D., & Lanza, G. (2025). The FAIR principles: valid guidelines for legal metrology? OIML Bulletin, 66(3).
