How FAIR is our operation?

According to the FAIR Principles, digital objects and their metadata must be findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (Wilkinson et al. 2016). This study details these principles in sections F1–F4, A1–A2, I1–I3 and R1–R1.3. (See also the GO FAIR summaries.)

In developing the book publishing service of L’Harmattan Open Access, we have strived—and continue to strive—to comply as fully as possible with the set of criteria described in the FAIR Principles, thereby supporting the work of the academic community. We have summarised in the table below how this is achieved in practice.

FAIR criteria	Practice of L’Harmattan Open Access
F1 – Globally unique and persistent identifier	DOIs to volumes and articles are assigned, which is registered with Crossref.
F2 – Rich metadata	The publisher manages detailed metadata at both book and chapter level; the metadata may include information on authors, institutions, funding bodies, licences and citations.
F3 – The metadata includes the identifier of the identified object	The DOI is linked to the book’s publication page and metadata; the Crossref registration includes the DOI and the associated metadata.
F4 – Registered or indexed in a searchable resourc	The volumes appear on the openaccess.pub platform, in numerous indexing and research databases via Thoth, and in numerous Hungarian research databases via the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Library and Information Center (MTA KIK).A detailed list can be found in the Distribution document.
A1 – Accessible via a standard communication protocol	The platform, as well as the repositories and databases hosting its content, provide web-based, searchable and harvestable access; the metadata can be exported from the website in standard formats.
A1.1 – Open, freely implementable protocol	Metadata export, API interfaces (GraphQL API explorer, Export API) and, shortly, OAI-PMH are provided by Thoth; further API interfaces with the L’Harmattan OA database can be established on request.
A1.2 – Authentication and authorisation where necessary	All publications and metadata published on the platform are freely accessible and downloadable; no registration is required.
A2 – Metadata remains accessible even if the data is no longer available	The metadata is stored in several databases and archives; the content is archived in MTA KIK REAL Repository, the Thoth Archiving Network, the Internet Archive and other institutional repositories.
I1 – A formal, accessible, common language for knowledge representation	The various metadata download options provided by L’Harmattan OA platform and Thoth are available in accordance with a number of standards: ONIX, MARC21, KBART, BibTeX, CrossrefXML.
I2 – FAIR-compliant thesauri and ontologies	Publications are assigned Thema, BISAC and FoS subject classifications; publication types have been defined in consultation with libraries.
I3 – Verified references to other metadata	Crossref registration includes verification of the DOI identifiers in the reference list; ORCID, ROR and unique website data are validated in every case.
R1 – Rich, accurate and relevant attributes	The publisher regards metadata enrichment, author and institutional identifiers, as well as language, subject area and licence data, as an integral part of the publication process.
R1.1 – Clear licence terms	The volumes are published under a Creative Commons licence; the licence information forms part of the publication and the metadata.
R1.2 – Provenance / origin and history	Contracts, book imprints and metadata clearly record copyright, licence, sponsorship and authorship details. The editorial board is responsible for documenting the peer-review process, and the publisher also has access to the reviews.
R1.3 – Compliance with community standardsix	The publisher adheres to requirements relating to the book trade, bibliography, open access and academic databases, with particular regard to the Palomera Recommendations, the inclusion criteria of research databases (e.g. DOAB, Web of Science), and the recommendations of professional organisations (e.g. OASPA, OPERAS).