Practical metadata standards: Making data sharing and endurance feasible

Event Abstract Back to Event Practical metadata standards: Making data sharing and endurance feasible Colin Ingram1* 1 University of Newcastle, United Kingdom Neuroscience data are associated with a rich set of descriptive information that define the data structure, study design, and conditions of data acquisition (such as device characteristics, experimental protocol and parameters, behavioral paradigms, and subject/patient information) and for analyzed data, the statistical procedures applied. These metadata have a vital role in enabling an understanding of a dataset and without them any shared data have little value. To facilitate data archive, storage, sharing and re-use a number of areas of bioscience have developed agreed minimal metadata standards that have been adopted both by database curators and publishers. The INCF Program on Metadata Standards is examining the issues around developing metadata standards for neuroscience, including methods for efficient acquisition, domain-specific minimal standards, agreed terminology, formats and interoperability. The Oversight Committee has reviewed current schemas used to support neuroscience metadata and identified a number of the challenges associated with implementing an effective metadata structure. The major challenge facing the program is that, whilst it is broadly accepted that ‘minimal’ metadata are helpful for categorization or indexing of data, in most cases minimal metadata are insufficient to understand a study. On the other hand, describing every condition of an experiment in sufficient detail is difficult, and implementing detailed database schema can burden users and reduce the incentive to contribute, particularly for historical data. Thus, whilst one of the overall aims is to develop generic minimal requirements for reporting metadata, a key principle of the program is to develop approaches that will generate metadata of sufficient detail as to increase the value of the data both now and in the future. To this end we propose to develop metadata extraction tools that can automatically read metadata from acquisition devices or from existing file formats. This metadata extraction will also be applied to the analysis packages used for data processing in order that it is possible to understand the processes used to generate derived data. The program will also evaluate the opportunities for developing standards for the exchange of metadata and new methods for recording metadata at source (e.g. electronic lab books). Such automated extraction will reduce the overhead for generating the metadata whilst implementing a standardized acquisition method. A second principle underlying this program is that specific projects aimed at implementing metadata standards should be user-oriented, with a clear understanding of the value of the available data, the identity of the user community, and the potential outcomes arising from sharing. To this end the Oversight Committee has recommended establishing two Task Forces with a focus around the specific areas of fMRI and EEG where there are large user communities, employing similar methodology and where there can be considerable benefit from data sharing. The first Task Force will focus on the use case of developing a metadata schema to support resting fMRI data, and will develop methods for automating metadata acquisition at the level of the laboratory and ensuring interoperability between different data management systems. The second Task Force will focus on the use case of creating a domain standard for exchanging and describing EEG data, and will develop a framework for defining stimuli which are used in EEG experiments. Over the life time of the program these two use cases will be evaluated to determine the extent to which application of metadata standards can increase the access to shared data. Conference: Neuroinformatics 2010 , Kobe, Japan, 30 Aug - 1 Sep, 2010. Presentation Type: Oral Presentation Topic: INCF Japan-Node Special Symposium "How Neuroinformatics can revolutionize Neuroscience" Citation: Ingram C (2010). Practical metadata standards: Making data sharing and endurance feasible. Front. Neurosci. Conference Abstract: Neuroinformatics 2010 . doi: 10.3389/conf.fnins.2010.13.00140 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 21 Jun 2010; Published Online: 21 Jun 2010. * Correspondence: Colin Ingram, University of Newcastle, Newcastle, United Kingdom, c.d.ingram@ncl.ac.uk Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. 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