Tools and data services registry: a community effort to document bioinformatics resources

Jon Ison, Kristoffer Rapacki, Hervé Ménager, Matúš Kalaš, Emil Rydza, Piotr Chmura, Christian Anthon, Niall Beard, Karel Berka, Dan Bolser, Tim Booth, Anthony Bretaudeau, Jan Brezovsky, Rita Casadio, Gianni Cesareni, Frederik Coppens, Michael Cornell, Gianmauro Cuccuru, Kristian Davidsen, Gianluca Della VedovaTunca Dogan, Olivia Doppelt-Azeroual, Laura Emery, Elisabeth Gasteiger, Thomas Gatter, Tatyana Goldberg, Marie Grosjean, Björn Grüning, Manuela Helmer-Citterich, Hans-Ioan Ienasescu, Vassilios Ioannidis, Martin Closter Jespersen, Rafael Jimenez, Nick Juty, Peter Juvan, Maximilian Koch, Camille Laibe, Jing-Woei Li, Luana Licata, Fabien Mareuil, Ivan Mičetić, Rune Møllegaard Friborg, Sebastien Moretti, Chris Morris, Steffen Möller, Aleksandra Nenadic, Hedi Peterson, Giuseppe Profiti, Peter Rice, Paolo Romano, Paola Roncaglia, Rabie Saidi, Andrea Schafferhans, Veit Schwämmle, Callum Smith, Maria Maddalena Sperotto, Heinz Stockinger, Radka Svobodová Vařeková, Silvio C. E. Tosatto, Victor de la Torre, Paolo Uva, Allegra Via, Guy Yachdav, Federico Zambelli, Gert Vriend, Burkhard Rost, Helen Parkinson, Peter Løngreen, Søren Brunak

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107 Citations (Scopus)
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Abstract

Life sciences are yielding huge data sets that underpin scientific discoveries fundamental to improvement in human health, agriculture and the environment. In support of these discoveries, a plethora of databases and tools are deployed, in technically complex and diverse implementations, across a spectrum of scientific disciplines. The corpus of documentation of these resources is fragmented across the Web, with much redundancy, and has lacked a common standard of information. The outcome is that scientists must often struggle to find, understand, compare and use the best resources for the task at hand.Here we present a community-driven curation effort, supported by ELIXIR-the European infrastructure for biological information-that aspires to a comprehensive and consistent registry of information about bioinformatics resources. The sustainable upkeep of this Tools and Data Services Registry is assured by a curation effort driven by and tailored to local needs, and shared amongst a network of engaged partners.As of November 2015, the registry includes 1785 resources, with depositions from 126 individual registrations including 52 institutional providers and 74 individuals. With community support, the registry can become a standard for dissemination of information about bioinformatics resources: we welcome everyone to join us in this common endeavour. The registry is freely available at https://bio.tools.

Original languageEnglish
JournalNucleic Acids Research
Volume44
Issue numberD1
Pages (from-to)D38-D47
Number of pages10
ISSN0305-1048
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2016

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