This week on the FAIR Data Podcast, Rory is joined by Michael R. Crusoe, co-founder and project lead of the Common Workflow Language (CWL) project for a special edition of the podcast coming out in conjunction with the 10th anniversary celebration of the RDA, with this month being dedicated to Software!

Find out more about Michael’s work here:
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2961-9670

The conversation starts with a brief look back at the impetus and events that inspired Michael and guided him on his journey to his role today, providing insight into how a combination of domain specific degree, in microbiology in Michael’s case, and a background in IT can give rise to a non-traditional career and journey. Michael expands on how specific events led to an interest in common workflow language, eventually culminating in his current project: the Common Workflow Language (CWL) project, find out more using the following link:

https://www.commonwl.org

As the conversation develops, Michael gives us a high-level overview of CWL and provides an update on the current standing and future expectations of the project. Michael mentions that CWL is a free and openly licensed standard that is implemented on the level of the command line and languages such as python, C, ruby, pearl and R.

Rory enquires about the work at EOSC and Michael mentions a few EOSC projects that have benefitted/or will engage with the CWL project. During the remainder of the conversation, Rory and Michael discuss community standards, recent developments in the standards landscape, and ways in which FAIR can be achieved by concerted efforts, and the connection between FAIR, software, and data. Check out the episode to join this fantastic conversation!

Find out more about Workflow Run RO-Crate, a working group for defining RO-Crate profiles for capturing the provenance of an execution of a computational workflow, and join here:

https://www.researchobject.org/workflow-run-crate/