The"I"in FAIR: Translating from Interoperability in Principle to Interoperation in Practice

2026-01-15

AI Summary

Although scientific data increasingly adhere to the FAIR principles and employ standardized identifiers, practical interoperability remains hindered by heterogeneity in identifier systems and data models. This work proposes and implements two synergistic tools—Babel and ORION—to bridge this gap. Babel constructs clusters of equivalent identifiers through mapping-based clustering and exposes them via a high-performance quantitative API, while ORION standardizes heterogeneous knowledge bases by aligning them to a community-governed common data model. Together, they systematically address the longstanding disconnect between the FAIR “Interoperable” principle and its real-world implementation. The integration of these tools has enabled the construction of a fully interoperable knowledge base, substantially enhancing cross-resource data integration and query capabilities. The resulting framework is publicly available.

Technology Category

• Data Mining & Knowledge Management: Linked Open Data, Knowledge Graphs & KB Completion
• Knowledge Representation and Reasoning: Ontologies
• Constraint Satisfaction and Optimization: Solvers and Tools

Application Category

• Semantics and Knowledge: Scalable techniques for the creation, curation, publication, maintenance, and consumption of large, Web-based, structured, reusable, knowledge graphs and ontologies
• Web Mining and Content Analysis: Web data integration and cleaning
• Security and Privacy: Data transparency and provenance

Abstract

The FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) data principles [1] promote the interoperability of scientific data by encouraging the use of persistent identifiers, standardized vocabularies, and formal metadata structures. Many resources are created using vocabularies that are FAIR-compliant and well-annotated, yet the collective ecosystem of these resources often fails to interoperate effectively in practice. This continued challenge is mainly due to variation in identifier schemas and data models used in these resources. We have created two tools to bridge the chasm between interoperability in principle and interoperation in practice. Babel solves the problem of multiple identifier schemes by producing a curated set of identifier mappings to create cliques of equivalent identifiers that are exposed through high-performance APIs. ORION solves the problems of multiple data models by ingesting knowledge bases and transforming them into a common, community-managed data model. Here, we describe Babel and ORION and demonstrate their ability to support data interoperation. A library of fully interoperable knowledge bases created through the application of Babel and ORION is available for download and use at https://robokop.renci.org.

Problem

• FAIR
• Interoperability
• Identifier Schemas
• Data Models
• Scientific Data

Innovation

• FAIR data
• interoperability
• identifier mapping
• data harmonization
• knowledge integration