Biological communities work across a range of domains and use a variety metrics to measure and evaluate their activities and performance. Metrics can be used in training, project management, software development as well as in more specific tasks like benchmarking of bioinformatics analysis tools or evaluation of data resources in the life science.

This Implementation Study has established Identifiers.org as a stable ELIXIR system for uniform identifier resolution to major bioinformatics resources (with a focus on ELIXIR reference resources). The upgraded Identifiers.org API supports interoperability and identifier resolution for ELIXIR services, national programmes and external users.

The aim of this project was to deposit relevant subsets of data from the IMI OncoTrack project into a data discovery service in the European Genome-phenome Archive (EGA) or as part of other ELIXIR Node resources (e.g. for long-term hosting of TranSMART instances). It also assessed the cost and complexity of ex-post data sharing efforts for IMI translational research projects.

The aim of this Implementation Study was to prepare for the start of the ELIXIR-EXCELERATE project and the anticipated scaling up of the ELIXIR Tools and Data Services Registry, both in terms of the content, functionality and the community behind it, certain urgent developments are required. These include technical development of the registry, preparations for a series of hackathons and publications following from these efforts.

The study has been completed, see the end report.

The long-term sustainability of the databases within ELIXIR is a constant concern for those who are managing them, with only a very small minority having secured funding over 5 years or more. The NIH grant that is currently funding a large proportion of UniprotKB/Swiss-Prot is guaranteed until 2018. At the same time, millions of life science users in Europe and beyond rely on these resources for their everyday research. 

The aim of this Implementation Study was to use the existing, genome related datasets from the areas of clinical and population genetics, cancer genomics and nonhuman genome analysis to drive the refinement of the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH) data schema (documents) as well as to implement compatible example resources.

There is a lot of material to teach software development, data manipulation, etc., but much of it is scattered, disorganized, contradictory, or inaccessible because it assumes too much prior knowledge. Contrarily there is a lack of training material in biocuration and for the development of content standards (terminologies, minimum information checklists, exchange formats) and their use in e.g. annotation tools.