Detailed description of the service 

One goal of the NFDI is to discuss, develop and disseminate technical specifications to advance the infrastructure for research data management. Technical publication is the process by which these results are disseminated to the general public. The technical editor of the FDM RFC is responsible for the final steps in the creation of the published technical specifications. The concept sets out the requirements for the tasks of the technical editor of the NFDI RFCs and describes how they work with the NFDI to produce these publications.

In order to quickly disseminate guidelines in research data management (RDM), it is proposed to set up a platform based on the Request For Comments (RFC) of the Internet Engineering Taskforce (IETF). This platform should make it easy to communicate new guidelines from the results of the NFDI initiatives and other developments in the field of RDM with the scientific community. The development of the RFC platform is part of the NFDI4Ing initiative. By establishing the platform across NFDI, visibility, benefits and acceptance should be increased. These guidelines present (discipline-specific) solutions for e.g. data formats and metadata standards, communication protocols between RDM systems, methods of handling research data, etc. The aim of this RFC platform is to quickly and easily convert the constantly changing state of knowledge in RDM and thus also the results from the NFDI initiatives into quasi-standards that build on one another and are implemented in the individual disciplines and also across disciplines. In the medium to long term, these can be elevated to established (DIN/ISO) standards. These standards will then already have been tried and tested in practice and will have received broad support from the specialist communities involved. By establishing the platform across the NFDI, visibility, benefits and acceptance are to be increased.

The NFDI RFC series is the archive series for documenting specifications for research data management, including general contributions from the areas of research data management and science as well as standardization documents. The starting point for creating RFCs is an initial structure that must adapt over time to developments in the area of RDM and NFDI. This also includes the development of organizational structures and policies. This is to be achieved through RFCs that build on one another. RFCs can complement one another over time or be replaced by revised versions.