Why endorse?
INCF has implemented a formal procedure for evaluating and endorsing community standards and best practices in support of the FAIR principles. Our mission is to make neuroscience more open and FAIR, to ensure that research funds and efforts are well invested, and that neuroscientific findings are robust and replicable.
Quality community standards are necessary to make FAIR resources and processes work, but too many neuroscience communities lack robust standards or have competing incompatible standards. The rapid development of new techniques also means that there is a continuous need for new and updated standards, and that old standards need an active developer and user community keeping them up to date.
By endorsing standards, INCF wants to
- Make it easy to find the best, most reliable standard appropriate for your research
- Ensure recognition for community members investing their time and effort in standards
How is endorsement done?
All standards and best practices applicable to neuroscience research may be submitted by either the developer or a member of the user community. Submissions undergo an initial vetting for appropriateness by the INCF Standards and Best Practices Committee before being formally accepted into the endorsement process which is composed of an expert review against an established set of criteria, community review, and final committee review which takes comments received during the expert and community reviews into consideration. At each phase of the endorsement process, submitters are able to provide responses to comments and provide additional supporting materials
Vetting and endorsement process
The process is managed by the INCF standards and best practices committee.
