How NFDI4Objects supports the community in defining standards and practices
How are Commons documents created by the community?
In our consortium, commons refers to all publications that are created in a joint process involving the community. We define the community as all experts who actively participate in the quality assurance of our shared commons by providing comments. This guide provides interested parties with all the information they need about the commons process in NFDI4Objects and how they can actively participate.
Creation of the first draft
A Temporary Working Group (TWG) independently prepares the first draft of a document in which the results of its work are documented. This document contains numbered paragraphs and lines to make it easier to add comments later. As soon as the draft is completed, the TWG decides independently on the time of publication and uploads the draft with line numbers as a PDF to the Zenodo platform in the NFDI4Objects community. A final layout that conforms to the corporate design is not yet required at this stage. Zenodo is used to ensure a comprehensible versioning of the document from the outset.
The commenting phase
After the publication of the first draft, the four-week commenting phase is initiated by the Coordination Office or the Commons Manager. The opportunity to comment is open to all interested parties. It is not necessary to belong to our consortium or an associated institution. On the contrary: NFDI4Objects explicitly considers all interested parties to be part of the community and invites them to comment. Therefore, the opportunity to participate has been deliberately kept low. A Word template (docx) is provided for the structured collection of comments, which is available on osf.io. The link to the template can be found in the abstract of the draft to be commented on Zenodo during the ongoing commenting phase. Details on how to submit comments can be found in the template itself. All comments submitted must be personalised and will be published together with the final draft after the commenting phase has ended.
Creation of the final draft
After the commenting phase has ended, it is the task of the TWG to review the comments submitted, discuss them and, if necessary, incorporate them into the final draft of the document.
This second draft is then published again on Zenodo, together with the collected comments and any discussion logs from the TWG. This second version of the document is now submitted to the NFDI4Objects General Assembly for decision.
Publication of the final document in the NFDI4Objects Commons
After approval by the General Assembly, the Coordination Office will create a final version of the document in the consortium’s corporate design. This final version is then also published on Zenodo in the NFDI4Objects community and is available to the public as part of our commons. All commons from the NFDI4Objects community are also referenced on our own commons platform.
This structured and transparent process ensures that all relevant voices can be heard and that our publications reflect the consensus within our community.