Rethinking the "A" in FAIR: Issues of Data Access and Accessibility in Research

The FAIR data principles are rapidly becoming a standard through which to assess responsible and reproducible research. The Accessibility criteria, often thought to be the most straightforward of the principles, are focussed on whether data and metadata can be accessed electronically (as opposed to accessibility in terms of physical disability). However, this perception is predicated on the assumption that data and metadata is deposited in a trustworthy digital repository and access to the repository is of the same quality regardless of who accesses it. We present the findings of a pilot study that demonstrates that this implicit assumption is not necessarily a valid one. In particular this assumption may not hold when connectivity is poor (as occurs for researchers from Low and Middle Income Counties) or connectivity is blocked for specific users on the basis of the country that they reside in (referred to as geo-blocking). This paper presents the findings of a pilot study that clearly indicated that access to FAIR data resources is influenced by a range of geo-political factors. The paper will also outline what would be the next steps for the FAIR community to safeguard access to Open resources to researchers around the world.