Standards drive the type of integration that SPARC is required to achieve. Standards are identified based on the data submitted and user requirements. SPARC adheres to the standards below. For a technical overview of SPARC Standards, see here.

SDS: SPARC Dataset Structure

The SPARC Dataset Structure (SDS)is a SPARC-endorsed standard prescribing a formal way to name and organize multimodal SPARC data and metadata in a file system that simplifies communication and collaboration between users and enables easier data validation and software development through using consistent paths and naming for data files.

SPARC Minimal Information Standard (MIS)

The minimal metadata and data model for SPARC research objects:

SPARC Dataset MIS: The minimal information model for SPARC datasets, developed by the SPARC Standards Committee. The MIS is encoded in TTL/OWL and is viewable using the Protege Ontology Editor.

The MIS has evolved over time as SPARC standards evolve or new standards are incorporated. For example, MIS 3.0 contains the SPARC Standards for Optical Microscopy Imaging Data and Imaging Metadata.

The SPARC Optical Microscopy Imaging Data and Metadata standard ensures a consistent set of microscopy imaging-specific metadata for primary and derivative imaging data across the SPARC ecosystem is included in experimental datasets.

Recommended Best Practices

FAIR Data Principles

High-level principles designed to make data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR) for both humans and machines. The principles encompass 15 guidelines designed to improve the usability of digital data. More details can be found at the GO FAIR initiative . In conjunction with the UCSD FAIR Data Informatics Lab, SPARC is adopting these principles, e.g., the use of persistent identifiers, FAIR vocabularies, and community standards to ensure that SPARC data is FAIR.

Minimal Information about a Neuroscience Data Standard (MINDS)

MINDS is a metadata standard developed by the European Human Brain Project through INCF that provides a set of standardized fields for describing neuroscience data sets. MINDs has not yet been formally released to the public, but as it represents a reasonable set of metadata fields, we have adopted its use in SPARC to organize some of the descriptive metadata that accompanies SPARC data sets.