New framework set to guide data reuse of public microbiome data

Scientists of microbiobs investigate the international study found that as regards the reuse of data, a universal set of ethical directives motivated by the scientific community must be adapted.

Laura HUG, Research President of Canada in Environmental Microbiology, was part of a team that interviewed more than 300 scientists around the world to obtain their ideas on the reuse of data. The researchers discovered obsolete guidelines and an incoherent approach to reuse data between institutions.

The article, “a roadmap for a fair reuse of data from the public microbiome”, published in Nature microbiologyOffers easy to follow guidelines that promote the reuse of fair sequence data. For scientists of the microbiome which are based on shared data, the adaptation of these guidelines could delete a major obstacle, hours of economy, otherwise spent, to find the owners of data sets.

“Too often, I would find sets of precious data, but I would need days to understand who had them,” said Hug. “The idea is to integrate these standards into databases with a data flag, to ensure that there is a clear connection to data owners.”

The flag is an information label on data (DRI) for public sequence data, linked to at least one ID of researcher and open contributor (Orcid). This machine -readable tag indicates to the researcher that data owners prefer to be contacted before reuse and provide their information.

The implementation of these guidelines has already started, the European archives of the implementation of a category of Orcid metadata which allows creators of data to attach identification information to their tenders.

Collaboration in science is increasingly important and sets of shared data from around the world help to advance research. But Hug highlights the need for caution when you use data when you don’t have the full image.

“These guidelines meet a need in the community,” said Hug. “There is a lot of fear that if the data sets are divided, it could be used in a bad way that does not precisely support the conclusions drawn from the research of others.”

The roadmap will ensure that data submissions are complete and reusable while encouraging researchers to contact owners of datasets, which provides a precious context and promotes a collaborative approach to assess the adequacy of data for reuse. This process also supports the appropriate recognition of the original work, which could list the owner of the data set as author or recognition in the document, depending on its impact on the study.