Importance of FAIR-by-Design approach

Currently, implementing the FAIR principles for learning materials is mostly taken as an afterthought, usually triggered by an issue related to one or more of the FAIR principles. Turning digital learning materials into FAIR learning materials after their development can be very tedious, time-consuming and error-prone because even if the original content author is doing the work, one must go through the whole material once more and gather additional information such as attribution and licensing of reused learning objects. If the original editable materials have not been versioned and stored properly, it will be very difficult to find the newest version to add and/or extract the necessary information. Then the new final learning package needs to be regenerated and published on a learning platform or other location where it will be available for consumption. Additionally, there will be a number of other steps involved such as defining the necessary metadata, adding facilitator package, cataloguing, etc. In essence, the FAIR-ification process will require recreating a whole new version of the learning materials.

Thus, it is essential that the FAIR principles are incorporated within the design process. In this way, unnecessary duplication of work can be avoided, and all necessary considerations have been properly addressed. That means that the FAIR-ification is being implemented throughout all stages of the learning materials development process from the inception to the release for use.