Genomic Standards Consortium

The Genomic Standards Consortium (GSC) is an open-membership working body formed in September 2005. The aim of the GSC is making genomic data discoverable. The GSC enables genomic data integration, discovery and comparison through international community-driven standards.

This project is maintained by GenomicsStandardsConsortium

Genomic Standards Consortium



Biodiversity Genomics Working Group

GSC Biodiversity Working Group (GBWG) Project Description 2012

Project Title GSC Biodiversity Working Group (GBWG)

Project Leads:

Team members: See list of members on the GSC wiki

Elevator pitch The goal of the GSC Biodiversity Working Group is to promote information and data interoperability between and across the biodiversity and molecular biology research domains. We aim to achieve this by establishing a network of leaders that share these common goals.

Project Summary A primary use case of the group is to conduct a case study on the harmonisation of the leading data standards of the two communities;namely, MIxS and Darwin Core.
To that end the group has organised a number of meetings between experts in this area.
The outcomes of the Sematics of Biodiversity meeting held in Kansas, 15-18 May 2012 can be found here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tF2rVxATUo8hxOifuucQ4LJAIK4Hz88fPkpw5wKyTKo/edit

Project initiation date This working group formed at GSC 9 at the JCVI as reported in the GSC 9 workshop report and has been active since: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21304722

What will this project aim to contribute to the GSC? This working group aims to build linkages to the biodiversity community and contribute to /nucleate the emerging ‘biodiversity genomics’ field.

Have you spoken about the project already within GSC? This WG formed in 2010 at the 9th Meeting of the GSC at the JCVI and is a very active part of the GSC.

Which existing projects, if any, does this one replace/complement/subsume/expand? This working group promotes MIxS compliance and harmonization of GSC efforts with the biodiversity community. in particular, efforts have focused heavily on harmonization of MIxS with the Darwin Core standard (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22238640).

This group works closely with the Biodiversity Genomics Interest Group formed at TDWG 2012. (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KI1cZ8Onw6Kq0nY5suTWtNo5occQ7ON0kc6N0AUrZMI/edit)), which at TDWG 2012 was renamed as Genomic Biodiversity Group, effectively fusing the two groups and sharing a charter and with joint leadership.

How does this project fit into GSC’s mission statement? This WG fulfills all aspects of the GSC mission in a domain-specific way, working with the broad biodiversity community, including the developers of the Darwin Core, TDWG, and GBIF, and the molecular standards community of GSC.

Will you start a GSC working group ? New members are always welcome. The WG started in 2010 and now includes 40+ groups and projects: See: http://wiki.gensc.org/index.php?title=Biodiversity_Working_Group

How do you wish to engage the GSC further ? We are interested in interacting with all the GSC groups.

Do you already have a website or do you wish to create a home page for the project in the GSC website? We use the GSC wiki (http://wiki.gensc.org/index.php?title=Biodiversity_Working_Group). Some developments will also be reflected on the TDWG site.

What other resources might you like from what the GSC can offer? The GSC already provides a mailing list for use by the group. Also, we publish our major working group sessions and activities in SIGS.

What kind of timeline are you working to for building consensus, releasing a first version etc? Some features have already been added to MiXS to include biodiversity considerations and these discussions will continue, and the direct output of our Darwin Core discussions will continue to be put up for a month long public comment period and then go to TDWG for further, evaluation, and the potential for ratification.

How is this work currently funded ? The BSF RCN4GSC has contributed significantly to the work of the GBWG. There is a now an NSF EAGER exclusively focused on genomic biodiversity.

What resources will be required for completion ? We will continue to seek external support to sustain genomic biodiversity standards efforts. The scale of what is needed is quite vast and sequence, microbes, and metagenomics will not be added to the “plate” of biodiversity without considerably more effort.

What are your current plans for publishing/promoting the project? Major workshop reports are published in SiGS, as are successful grant applications, and as they are finalized, white papers will also be submitted to SiGS. Five papers as of Feb 2013 already describe (in SiGS) our efforts and other papers will follow shortly.

References or relevant websites (for further reading)