FRACS
- Metadata that are available publicly can be seen on the platform's search tool
- Users may filter available datasets by facets, for instance Publisher, Year of publication, Research field, Data format, etc.
- Metadata will always be available, to conform to the FAIR principles
- However, in most cases, datasets in themself won’t be made public
- If an anonymous user notices a dataset that he would be interested in downloading, he must first create an account by clicking “create an account” from the upper right login button
- Once an account has been created, the user will have the ability to contact the dataset publisher to request an access to data
- Users can also request a contributor account to deposit their own datasets in FRACS
- In order to publish a dataset, the user must first define a set of metadata
- Metadata are defined on several levels
- The next step is to provide a distribution for the dataset, this can be done in three ways:
1. Provide a direct link to an archive file
2. Upload an archive file or
3. Use the credentials for an annotation platform such as PACTE and select a dataset - After the distribution step, a user will be able to mint a DOI, this is done through the DataCite Canada API
- The last step will be to publish the dataset, i.e. make the metadata available on FRACS.
- This step also includes publishing in the Portage Network FRDR, and generates the appropriate files for the dataset to be indexed in Google Dataset Search



Factsheet
FRACS is a repository of annotations that facilitates the creation, storage, retrieval, manipulation and distribution of annotation sets on corpora of documents. FRACS conforms to the FAIR principles, allowing the discovery, accessibility, interoperability and reuse of your research data. FRACS is part of the Canadian National Data Services Framework initiative.
FRACS is a multi-faceted project. It can be used:
- as a repository of annotations for a research project
- as a catalogue of datasets enriched with metadata to facilitate the discovery of your work
- directly connected to an application or platform
- to generate distributions of your datasets in order to exchange them with other teams
FRACS modules
FRACS is offered as interoperable modules ready to be deployed and instantiated individually or as a whole:
- RACS for documents, schemas, and annotations storage
- UsAc for authentication and access rights
- FSS for storing dataset distributions
- Catá, the web application displaying the metadata catalog
The RACS storage module was developed by CRIM as part of the Adnotare project, to store the data generated by the PACTE text annotation platform. As part of the FRACS project, RACS will be enhanced to meet the needs of other research disciplines and complemented by a rights management module (UsAc), a binary archive storage module (FSS) and a metadata catalogue (Catá).
Licence
Copyright (c) 2020 CRIM - All rights reserved.
As related to the code :
Permission to use, copy, modify, and/or distribute this software for any purpose with or without fee is
hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS” AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS.
IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.
Provenance
A CRIM pre-release version is deployed on an staging server and integration testing is performed to make sure the platform is in working order.
If everything is in order, the pre-release version becomes the release version and is deployed on CRIM OS (CRIM OpenStack).
Release Notes
0.12.4
First official release of the FRACS.
Source
Source code is available on request at the address below.