Where LEGO Meets FAIR Data
Organized by: OpenAIRE & Area Science Park
Type: Online, Interactive Workshop
Date: 05/06/2025
Duration: 2 hours
Participants: Early-career researchers, data stewards & Open Science professionalsIn a refreshing blend of gamification and pedagogy, Area Science Park, together with OpenAIRE, hosted a hands-on online workshop aimed at unpacking the complexities of FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) data principles. Participants from 15 countries across Europe came together for a creative session that used Lego bricks as a metaphor for raw research data, transforming abstract data management concepts into tangible, playful activities.
The workshop kicked off with introductions by Mariarita de Luca and Federica Bazzocchi from Area Science Park's Research Institute for Technological Innovation in Trieste. Highlighting their lab's multidisciplinary data work, they set the stage for an unconventional learning experience that would unfold over the next two hours. Theodora Kavvadia of OpenAIRE welcomed participants and facilitated an icebreaker to gauge attendees' familiarity with FAIR principles and training preferences.
Central to the session was a clever analogy: Star Wars' iconic Millennium Falcon Lego set represented a complex research project. Its individual pieces symbolised data elements; the assembly instructions acted as metadata. This framing allowed participants to explore data classification through a lens that was both accessible and enjoyable. Three breakout groups were then tasked with organizing Lego bricks according to chosen criteria, color, shape, function, and more.
The exercise was conducted collaboratively using Miro, a digital whiteboard tool that allowed teams to visually sort and annotate their Lego pieces in real time.
Group presentations revealed both shared ideas and notable differences. Some teams prioritised visual features like color for ease of sorting, while others emphasised structural or functional attributes. The exercise underlined how divergent perspectives, even on toy bricks, mirror real-world challenges in developing community-wide metadata standards. Facilitators pointed out that such differences highlight the importance of consensus in scientific data modeling, especially when aiming for machine-actionable metadata as required by FAIR principles.
The facilitators then demonstrated how Lego itself manages its vast inventory: via a structured repository categorising each part by type, model, and color, remarkably close to the FAIR-aligned strategies the groups had devised.
Beyond the game, the session also introduced participants to a unique educational opportunity: the Master in Data Management and Curation, co-organized by Area Science Park and SISSA in Trieste. The program, now open for applications until June 10, 2025, offers a hybrid model of in-person instruction and real-world lab placements. Emphasising FAIR-by-design workflows, it is geared toward equipping professionals with both technical and ethical skills for research data stewardship, including several months of internship.
OpenAIRE closed the session by showcasing a suite of open science services: Argos for data management planning, Amnesia for data anonymisation, Zenodo for repository use, and OpenPlato for training resources, underlining the growing infrastructure available to support open, FAIR research practices.
The workshop concluded not just with new knowledge, but also with a sense of shared discovery. As one participant noted, the real value lay in realizing how differently people see and organize the same information, a fundamental insight for anyone working in data-driven science.
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