Ensuring that your data is findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable (FAIR) benefits society and the advancement of knowledge, and can lead to citation.

The FAIR Principles are a guide to maximising the potential for your data to be shared and reused, and are supported by ARC and NHMRC policies. The UWA Research Integrity Policy says, at 8(A)(3), "make available for discussion with other researchers all research data related to publications in accordance with FAIR Principles where confidentiality restrictions do not apply."

Maximum benefit can be gained from your datasets by making them:

Findable - published in your institutional or other repository, with rich metadata and a persistent identifier, like a DOI (Digital Object identifier).

Accessible - by humans and machines through standardised communication protocols, with authentication and authorisation where necessary.

Interoperable - the data and metadata use community accepted vocabularies and formats, and the relationship to other data is described.

Reusable - datasets have a clear usage licence and provenance information on how the data was created and contextual information to allow reuse.

The Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC), Australia's peak body for research data enabled by the Australian Government's National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS), provides excellent practical support to make your data FAIR, including information on:

• assigning persistent identifiers
• creating rich metadata
• using standardised communication protocols
• vocabularies
• data provenance and more.

Use the ARDC FAIR Data Self-Assessment Tool to assess your datasets and get practical tips to enhance their FAIRness.

Having a Research Data Management Plan is essential, as data should be properly created and managed from the early stages of research so it can be as FAIR as possible.

Does your research involve handling, managing or analysing Indigenous data? If so, you should be aware of the CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance. The CARE principles describe how data should be treated to ensure that Indigenous governance over the data and its use is respected. The CARE principles complement the existing FAIR principles. While the FAIR principles are about making it easier to share and reuse data, the CARE principles ensure that data is used ethically.