FAIR for Containers: a Practical Guide

Containers are well known for their ability to make research software reproducible. Containers have been widely used in research, with the usage spanning HPC, initiatives like BioCommons, platform projects and individual research [2], [3], [4]. Despite the widespread usage and reproducibility advantage there is no guide which outlines a process in making containers Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reproducible (FAIR) [5]. FAIR for containers have been long on the ARCOS community s agenda and it has excellent potential benefits to the research community. Hence, this guide attempts to lay the foundations in addressing the shortcomings by adopting a practical approach. It takes advantage of existing FAIR for research software [1] guidelines in translating FAIR principles into practical guidelines for containers.