Crystallography Open Database: History, Development, and Perspectives

.....................................................................................................................................................2 Introduction................................................................................................................................................2 Open databases for science........................................................................................................................2 COD history...............................................................................................................................................2 Building COD............................................................................................................................................5 Scope and contents...............................................................................................................................6 Data sources.........................................................................................................................................6 Data maintenance................................................................................................................................6 Version control...........................................................................................................................................9 Data curation policies.................................................................................................................................9 Quarterly releases.......................................................................................................................................9 Sister databases (PCOD, TCOD)......................................................................................................10 Use of COD..............................................................................................................................................11 Data search...............................................................................................................................................11 Data identification (unique identifiers)....................................................................................................11 Search interfaces......................................................................................................................................11 Web interfaces..........................................................................................................................................11 REST-ful interfaces..................................................................................................................................12 MySQL interface......................................................................................................................................12 Subversion and rsync updates of the data................................................................................................12 Use of version control systems (Subversion, GIT)..................................................................................12 File system based queries.........................................................................................................................12 Programmatic use of COD CIFs..............................................................................................................12 Installing local copy of COD.............................................................................................................13 Data deposition..................................................................................................................................13 Applications.............................................................................................................................................14 Material identification.......................................................................................................................14 Property search..................................................................................................................................14 Geometry statistics.............................................................................................................................14 High-throughput computations..........................................................................................................15 Applications for teaching and demonstration....................................................................................15 Perspectives..............................................................................................................................................15 Historic structures..............................................................................................................................15 Problems with access to data.............................................................................................................15 Decentralised COD database............................................................................................................15 Theoretical data in (T)COD...............................................................................................................16 Image data deposition........................................................................................................................16 Discussion..........................................................................................................................................16