John Quackenbush, Data standards for 'omic' science, Nature Biotechnology 22, 613 - 614 (2004). (Access restricted to subscribers.) Quackenbush reviews various efforts of standardization of data release in the bioinformatics community, in particular the area of DNA microarray analysis. One aspect is a requirement among many journals (including Nature) that data be deposited in a public archive. Quackenbush describes the development of the Minimal Information About a Microarray Experiment (MIAME) standard and its adoption by many journals and databanks. What remains to be done, the author suggests:
The greatest value of all of the 'omics' data that is being generated will probably come when we stop considering microarray or proteomic or metabolomic or any other data set as independent and realize that together they provide us with complementary views of the fundamental biological processes we are studying. Consequently, we need to consider methods that will place these diverse data into a common reference frame that can organize the information in a manner facilitating its interpretation.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
