Rfam 15: RNA families database in 2025 is a dataset published in Nucleic Acids Research (2024). On theSindex it has a DataRank of 1.7, placing it in the top 12.3% of the data-sharing corpus. It has been cited 165 times, with 100 citing works in its 1-hop citation network. Its calibrated FAIR score is 71/100.
Ranks in the top 12% for downstream scientific impact
DataRank reads this dataset's downstream impact straight off the citation graph — no black box, no proprietary weighting. How is this computed?
FAIR checklist signals are shown for context only and do not affect DataRank scoring.
Full FAIR picture · advisory
The headline score is computed from the scored criteria — the fact-shaped checks (a repository, an accession, a licence) that two independent models agree on. The advisory criteria below are real FAIR guidance but rest on judgment calls that models read differently, so they inform without moving the number.
“https://rfam.org”
The paper gives a web URL (https://rfam.org) as the location of the data, but this is not a persistent identifier scheme (DOI, Handle, ARK, accession, etc.). [majority verdict 'partial' (3/5 passes agreed)]
RDA-F1-01D — FAIR Data Maturity Model: 'Data is identified by a persistent identifier' (priorit · RDA-F1-02D — FAIR Data Maturity Model: 'Data is identified by a globally unique identifier' · FsF-F1-02D — F-UJI/FAIRsFAIR: 'Data is assigned a persistent identifier'
“All Rfam data are released under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) licence at https://rfam.org.”— not found in the paper; verdict downgraded
The named holder is the website rfam.org, not a repository listed in re3data/FAIRsharing. [downgraded to 'no' — no verifiable quote from the paper] [majority verdict 'no' (2/5 passes agreed)]
RDA-F4-01M — FAIR Data Maturity Model: metadata is offered so it can be harvested and indexed ( · NIH DMS Policy Element 4 (NOT-OD-21-014) — name the repository where data will be archived · NSTC Desirable Characteristics of Data Repositories (2022) — 'Long-Term Sustainability', 'Reten
“All Rfam data are released under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) licence at https://rfam.org .”
The dataset identifier (URL) appears only in the body text, not as a reference-list entry. [majority verdict 'partial' (3/5 passes agreed)]
FORCE11 Joint Declaration of Data Citation Principles (2014) — data should be cited as a first- · RDA-F3-01M — metadata clearly and explicitly includes the identifier of the data it describes · FsF-F3-01M — F-UJI: 'Metadata includes the identifier of the data it describes'
Advisory · not in the published score
“All Rfam data are released under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) licence at https://rfam.org . The data can be accessed via an API, a public MySQL database and the FTP archive.”
The statement points to a website and FTP archive, not to a repository record with an accession or DOI. [majority verdict 'partial' (4/5 passes agreed)]
Colavizza, Hrynaszkiewicz, Staden, Whitaker & McGillivray (2020), 'The citation advantage of li · Springer Nature research data policy — Data Availability Statements: standard statement templat · RDA-F3-01M — metadata clearly and explicitly includes the identifier of the data it describes
“Table 1. The number of genomes in Rfamseq corresponding to release 14.0 and 15.0”
The paper includes Table 1, an itemised inventory of the dataset's genomes by kingdom. [majority verdict 'yes' (3/5 passes agreed)]
RDA-F2-01M — 'Rich metadata is provided to allow discovery' (priority Essential) · FsF-F2-01M — F-UJI: 'Metadata includes descriptive core elements to support data findability' · FsF-R1-01MD — F-UJI: 'Metadata specifies the content of the data'
“All Rfam data are released under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) licence at https://rfam.org . The data can be accessed via an API, a public MySQL database and the FTP archive.”
The data availability statement gives a direct route (URL, API, FTP) with no stated precondition. [majority verdict 'yes' (3/5 passes agreed)]
RDA-A1.1-01D — 'Data is accessible through a free access protocol' · FsF-A1-01M — F-UJI: 'Metadata contains access level and access conditions of the data' · NSTC Desirable Characteristics of Data Repositories (2022) — 'Free and Easy Access'
Advisory · not in the published score
“Rfam is freely available at https://rfam.org .”
The abstract states 'Rfam is freely available', which is an explicit access-level label (freely available) for the data. [majority verdict 'yes' (3/5 passes agreed)]
FsF-A1-01M — F-UJI: 'Metadata contains access level and access conditions of the data' · RDA-A1-01M — metadata contains information to enable the user to get access to the data · COAR Controlled Vocabularies — Access Rights v1.0 (open / embargoed / restricted / metadata-onl
The data are not sensitive or human-subject; no gatekeeper is named or needed.
NIH Genomic Data Sharing Policy (NOT-OD-14-124) — controlled-access via a Data Access Committee · RDA-A1.2-01D — 'Data is accessible through an access protocol that supports authentication and · NIH DMS Policy Element 5 (NOT-OD-21-014) — Access, Distribution, or Reuse Considerations (conse
No sentence states how long the data will remain available or commits to a retention period. [majority verdict 'no' (3/5 passes agreed)]
NIH DMS Plan Element 4 (NOT-OD-21-014) — Data Preservation, Access, and Associated Timelines · NSTC Desirable Characteristics (2022), Organizational Infrastructure: 'Retention Policy' · RDA-A2-01M — 'Metadata is guaranteed to remain available after data is no longer available'
“the sequences and secondary structures are iteratively added to the alignment in the Stockholm format using Infernal’s cmalign program”
Stockholm is an open, community-standard format for RNA alignments. [majority verdict 'yes' (3/5 passes agreed)]
FsF-R1.3-02D — F-UJI: 'Data is available in a file format recommended by the target research co · RDA-R1.3-02D — data is expressed in a machine-understandable community standard · RDA-I1-01D — data uses a knowledge representation expressed in a standardised format
Advisory · not in the published score
“Gene Ontology (GO) and Sequence Ontology annotations were comprehensively updated”
The paper names GO and SO, which are community-standard vocabularies applied to the data.
RDA-R1.3-01M — 'Metadata complies with a community standard' (priority Essential) · RDA-R1.3-01D — 'Data complies with a community standard' · RDA-I2-01M — '(Meta)data use vocabularies that follow FAIR principles'
No identifier (DOI, accession, RRID) for an external resource is given in the text; only references to papers are provided. [majority verdict 'no' (3/5 passes agreed)]
RDA-I3-01M — '(meta)data include references to other (meta)data' · RDA-I3-03M — 'metadata includes qualified references to other metadata' · FsF-I3-01M — F-UJI: 'Metadata includes links between the data and its related entities'
“All Rfam data are released under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) licence”
CC0 is an open standard license, explicitly named for the data. [majority verdict 'yes' (4/5 passes agreed)]
RDA-R1.1-01M — 'Metadata includes information about the licence under which the data can be reu · RDA-R1.1-02M — 'Metadata refers to a standard reuse licence' · RDA-R1.1-03M — 'Metadata refers to a machine-understandable reuse licence'
“Rfam 15: RNA families database in 2025”
The paper uses version tokens 'Rfam 15' and 'release 15.0' to identify the snapshot. [majority verdict 'yes' (4/5 passes agreed)]
DataCite Metadata Schema 4.6 — the 'Version' property · RDA-R1.2-01M — provenance information (which version was used is provenance) · NSTC Desirable Characteristics of Data Repositories (2022) — 'Provenance', 'Retention Policy'
“All code is available on GitHub under the Apache 2.0 licence at https://github.com/Rfam and Zenodo at 10.5281/zenodo.13919037 and 10.5281/zenodo.13919054.”
The paper provides a Zenodo DOI and a GitHub URL, both machine-resolvable locators.
NIH DMS Policy Element 2 (NOT-OD-21-014) — 'Related Tools, Software and/or Code' · FAIR4RS Principles v1.0 (Chue Hong et al., 2022; RDA/FORCE11/ReSA) — FAIR Principles for Resear · FORCE11 Software Citation Principles (Smith, Katz & Niemeyer, 2016, PeerJ CS 2:e86)
“Wellcome Trust [218302/Z/19/Z]; Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council [BB/S020462/1]”
Award numbers are given for two funders.
DataCite Metadata Schema 4.6 — 'FundingReference' property (funderName, funderIdentifier, award · Crossref Funder Registry — canonical funder identifiers for funding metadata · RDA-F2-01M — rich metadata provided to allow discovery (funding is part of the descriptive reco
Advisory · not in the published score
“covariance model (CM) built using the Infernal software”
The paper names the specific software (Infernal) used to build the covariance models, which are part of the data production. [majority verdict 'yes' (3/5 passes agreed)]
RDA-R1.2-01M — 'Metadata includes provenance information according to community- specific standa · FsF-R1.2-01M — F-UJI: 'Metadata includes provenance information about data creation or generati · W3C PROV-O (W3C Recommendation, 2013) — the entity/activity/agent model of provenance
“Table 1. The number of genomes in Rfamseq corresponding to release 14.0 and 15.0”
The paper includes a table inside the article that describes the data extent, but no separate documentation object is said to accompany the data. [majority verdict 'partial' (3/5 passes agreed)]
RDA-R1-01M — '(Meta)data are richly described with a plurality of accurate and relevant attribu · FsF-R1-01MD — F-UJI: 'Metadata specifies the content of the data' · NIH DMS Policy Element 3 (NOT-OD-21-014) — Standards (documentation and metadata to accompany t
Calibrated FAIR score — a parallel quality metric, independent of the DataRank citation score. See the full evaluation →
Base Score Contribution
0.767
From this paper's citation signal
Citation Network Contribution
0.927
From 57 citing papers with measurable signal
Ranked by each citer's contribution to N(p) — log1p(Cq) divided by its reference count — out of 100 citers.
UK Research and Innovation
Grant: BB/S020462/1
Rfam: The community resource for RNA families
Wellcome Trust
Grant: 218302
A comprehensive platform for the functional annotation of non-coding RNA genes and gene families
Fields of Study
Keywords