tom Wörden, H.; Spreckelsen, F.; Luther, S.; Parlitz, U.; Schlemmer, A. Mapping Hierarchical File Structures to Semantic Data Models for Efficient Data Integration into Research Data Management Systems. Data2024, 9, 24.
tom Wörden, H.; Spreckelsen, F.; Luther, S.; Parlitz, U.; Schlemmer, A. Mapping Hierarchical File Structures to Semantic Data Models for Efficient Data Integration into Research Data Management Systems. Data 2024, 9, 24.
tom Wörden, H.; Spreckelsen, F.; Luther, S.; Parlitz, U.; Schlemmer, A. Mapping Hierarchical File Structures to Semantic Data Models for Efficient Data Integration into Research Data Management Systems. Data2024, 9, 24.
tom Wörden, H.; Spreckelsen, F.; Luther, S.; Parlitz, U.; Schlemmer, A. Mapping Hierarchical File Structures to Semantic Data Models for Efficient Data Integration into Research Data Management Systems. Data 2024, 9, 24.
Abstract
Although other methods exist to store and manage data in modern information technology, the standard solution are file systems. Therefore keeping well-organized file structures and file system layouts can be key to a sustainable research data management infrastructure. However, file structures alone are lacking several important capabilities for FAIR data management: The two most striking are insufficient visualization of data and inadequate possibilities for searching and getting an overview. Research data management systems (RDMS) can fill this gap, but many do not support the simultaneous use of the file system and the RDMS. This simultaneous use can have many benefits, but keeping data in the RDMS in synchrony with the file structure is challenging. Here, we present concepts that allow to keep file structures and semantic data models (in RDMS) synchronous. Furthermore, we propose a specification in yaml-format that allows for a structured and extensible declaration and implementation of a mapping between the file system and data models used in semantic research data management. Implementing these concepts will facilitate the re-use of specifications for multiple use cases. Furthermore, the specification can serve as a machine-readable and, at the same time, human-readable documentation of specific file system structures. We demonstrate our work using the Open Source RDMS CaosDB.
Keywords
research data management; FAIR; file structure; file crawler; semantic data model
Subject
Computer Science and Mathematics, Information Systems
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
