Reproducibility of research is essential for science. However, in the way modern computational biology research is done, it is easy to lose track of small, but extremely critical, details. Key details, such as the specific version of a software used or iteration of a genome can easily be lost in the shuffle, or perhaps not noted at all. Much work is being done on the database and storage side of things, ensuring that there exists a space to store experiment-specific details, but current mechanisms for recording details are cumbersome for scientists to use. We propose a new metadata description language, named MEDFORD, in which scientists can record all details relevant to their research. Human-readable, easily-editable, and templatable, MEDFORD serves as a collection point for all notes that a researcher could find relevant to their research, be it for internal use or for future replication. MEDFORD has been applied to coral research, documenting research from RNA-seq analyses to photo collections.
翻译:然而,在现代计算生物学研究的进行方式中,很容易忽略微小但极为关键的细节。关键细节,如所用软件的具体版本或基因组的复制等关键细节很容易在洗牌中丢失,或者可能根本不会注意到。在资料的数据库和储存方面正在做大量工作,确保有储存具体实验细节的空间,但目前的记录细节的机制对于科学家来说是累赘的。我们提出了一种新的元数据描述语言,名为MEDFORD, 科学家可以在其中记录与其研究有关的所有细节。 人类可以读取的、容易编辑的和可移植的MEDFORD是所有关于研究人员可以发现与其研究相关,无论是内部使用还是未来复制的注释的收集点。MEDFORD已被应用于珊瑚研究,记录从RNA-Seq分析到照片收集的研究。