MICheckout: Supporting compliance with consensus reporting requirements

近年来，生物科学家进行实验的方法变得越来越复杂。为了确保这类实验的数据以一种支持其他科学家分析的方式进行描述，不同的小组已经为他们所在的领域起草了最小信息(MI)核对表文件。这些文件描述了为适当描述特定设备或方法而应收集的信息。MI核对表用于确保在上下文中正确设置数据，以便支持其正确解释、验证或重复使用。然而，这种MI检查表通常是从特定的生物或技术描述的领域(例如，植物生物学或质谱学)独立制定的。因此，如果不进行深入的搜索，就很难建立完整的清单，而且跟踪清单的演变也不是微不足道的；它们也不可避免地相互部分冗余(即，它们在各自的主题领域重叠)，而且它们重叠的情况下，在措辞和结构上的任意决定使整合变得困难。这给核对表的使用者带来了极大的困难；例如，在系统生物学领域，来自许多不同领域的数据经常被组合在一起。MIBBI(生物和生物医学调查的最低信息)项目正在努力整合这许多清单，并最终将产生一套涵盖不同领域的清单，同时避免重叠的问题。然而，生物学家需要的是一种简单的机制，以便为他们的特定研究获得适当的清单。这项提议寻求支持开发一种工具，该工具将：(1)使科学家能够找到他们所需要的清单；(2)为他们提供两种不同的机制来获取清单所需的信息(Excel或在线表格)；(3)在可搜索的公共储存库中提供存储数据集的空间(与在线表格协同工作)。MICheckout一旦开发，将在MIBBI网站上提供，并将满足上一段所列的所有三项要求。总体而言，MICheckout将增加对MI核对表的使用，这将提高公开可用的数据集的质量(从而提高它们的重复使用)，这最终意味着BBSRC等资助者对科学的初始投资将产生更多价值。

In recent years, the methods by which biological scientists conduct experiments have become increasingly complex. To ensure that the data from such experiments is described in a manner that supports analysis by other scientists, various groups have drawn up Minimum Information (MI) checklist documents for their area. These documents describe the information that should be collected to appropriately describe a particular piece of equipment or method. MI checklists serve to ensure that data are properly set in context, so as to support their correct interpretation, validation or reuse. However, such MI checklists are usually developed independently, from within particular biologically- or technologically-delineated areas (for example, plant biology, or mass spectrometry). Consequently, the full range of checklists can be difficult to establish without intensive searching, and tracking their evolution is non-trivial; they are also inevitably partially-redundant one against another (i.e. they overlap in their subject areas), and where they overlap arbitrary decisions on wording and structure make integration difficult. This presents significant difficulties for the users of checklists; for example, in the area of systems biology, where data from many different areas are routinely combined. The MIBBI (Minimum Information for Biological and Biomedical Investigations) project is working to integrate these many checklists and will ultimately produce a set of checklists that cover diverse areas while avoiding the problems of overlap. What is needed though is a simple mechanism for biologists to acquire an appropriate checklist for their particular investigation. This proposal seeks support for the development of a tool that will; (i) allow scientists to find the checklists they need; (ii) provide them with two different mechanisms to capture the information their checklist requires (Excel or online forms); (iii) offer space in a searchable public repository in which to store data sets (working in tandem with the online forms). MICheckout, once developed, will be available at the MIBBI website and will satisfy all the three requirements listed in the previous paragraph. Overall, MICheckout will increase use of MI checklists, which will improve the quality of publicly-available data sets (and therefore their reuse), which ultimately means that more value is being generated from the initial investment in the science by funders such as BBSRC.