BioSharing: curated and crowd-sourced metadata standards, databases and data policies in the life sciences

Abstract

BioSharing (http://www.biosharing.org) is a manually curated, searchable portal of three linked registries. These resources cover standards (terminologies, formats and models, and reporting guidelines), databases, and data policies in the life sciences, broadly encompassing the biological, environmental and biomedical sciences. Launched in 2011 and built by the same core team as the successful MIBBI portal, BioSharing harnesses community curation to collate and cross-reference resources across the life sciences from around the world. BioSharing makes these resources findable and accessible (the core of the FAIR principle). Every record is designed to be interlinked, providing a detailed description not only on the resource itself, but also on its relations with other life science infrastructures. Serving a variety of stakeholders, BioSharing cultivates a growing community, to which it offers diverse benefits. It is a resource for funding bodies and journal publishers to navigate the metadata landscape of the biological sciences; an educational resource for librarians and information advisors; a publicising platform for standard and database developers/curators; and a research tool for bench and computer scientists to plan their work. BioSharing is working with an increasing number of journals and other registries, for example linking standards and databases to training material and tools. Driven by an international Advisory Board, the BioSharing user-base has grown by over 40% (by unique IP address), in the last year thanks to successful engagement with researchers, publishers, librarians, developers and other stakeholders via several routes, including a joint RDA/Force11 working group and a collaboration with the International Society for Biocuration. In this article, we describe BioSharing, with a particular focus on community-led curation.Database URL: https://www.biosharing.org

DATS: the data tag suite to enable discoverability of datasets

“…BD2K Aztec: https://aztec.bio), DataRepository and DataStandard (e.g. BioSharing 11 , https://biosharing.org). The latter is especially important in the light of the vast swathes of data that still remain locked in esoteric formats, are described using ad hoc or proprietary terminology or lack sufficient contextual information.…”

Enabling Precision Medicine via standard communication of HTS provenance, analysis, and results

“…These are just a few examples of the efforts that combine technologies, ontologies, and standards to enhance computational analysis information. The FAIRsharing.org portal (formally biosharing.org) for metadata standards in the biosciences has a comprehensive curated catalogue [81]. The positive response to improving interoperability indicates the community's need for such standardization [22] ).…”

BioSharing: Harnessing Metadata Standards for the Data Commons

“…Content or metadata standards ensure that the relevant elements of a dataset (e.g., fundamental biological entities or experimental components, as well as complex concepts such as tissues and diseases, along with the analytical process and the mathematical models) are reported consistently and meaningfully, opening the datasets to transparent interpretation, verification, exchange, integrative analysis and comparison, For the consumers of these metadata standards, it is often difficult to know which are the most relevant for a specific domain or need; while for producers it is important that their resources are findable by prospective users [5]. These are the key use cases addressed by BioSharing [6,7], a curated, informative and educational resource with over 1,700 records describing and interlinking metadata standards, data repositories, and policies in the life, environmental and biomedical sciences. Specifically, BioSharing works with and for the community to map the landscape of metadata standards, defining the indicators necessary to monitor their evolution, implementation and use in data repositories, and their adoption in data policies by funders, journals and other organizations.…”

“…These are the key use cases addressed by BioSharing [6,7], a curated, informative and educational resource with over 1,700 records describing and interlinking metadata standards, data repositories, and policies in the life, environmental and biomedical sciences. Specifically, BioSharing works with and for the community to map the landscape of metadata standards, defining the indicators necessary to monitor their evolution, implementation and use in data repositories, and their adoption in data policies by funders, journals and other organizations.…”