Recommendation to credit people/tools/softwares in MIxS?

[ymgan]

Hey,

May I know what are the recommendations to properly credit various parties for data in MIxS standard? e.g.:

• personnel involved in sampling
• software/tools/reference databases used in taxonomic classification - versions, etc ...

To compare with Darwin Core for instance, Darwin Core has terms like identifiedBy, georeferencedBy, measurementDeterminedBy to credit the personnel involved.

Yi-Ming Gan

[lschriml]

Possible solutions: utilize identifiedBy, explore how Darwin Core addresses this issue.

[ramonawalls]

This is a great point. I think the solution here is to reused the DwC fields with MIxS, although it is a challenge, because many people using MIxS will not know to use DwC.

There are several efforts to align DwC and MIxS, including a new TDWG task group that will form shortly (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KvcOmxwLJWAO889wpmcLUpxnI3lhx1vWoXnH9nuEsC8/edit).

Also GGBN includes both MIxS and DwC terms, and they have requested to be a GSC standard. If we can adopt GGBN and then work with INSDCs to get a Biosamples package for GGBN, that could work.

Documentation is key to fixing this problem.

This is a key issue for GBWG https://www.tdwg.org/community/gbwg/

[ymgan]

Thanks so much Lynn and Ramona, I appreciate the responses. To clarify, I received this question from the omics/eDNA community, but I am not sure if they use Darwin Core.

The question presented by the community was - For microbes, the OTUs are assigned based on the algorithm/software and the parameters used, so identifiedBy may not be appropriate here. Hence I am wondering what is the recommendation to credit the tools used? What about the person who did the analyses?

How DwC is used to address this issue can be seen in an example occurrence record here

Term	Interpreted
Identification references	https://www.ebi.ac.uk/metagenomics/pipelines/4.1
Identification remarks	SSU rRNA annotated using the taxonomic reference database described here: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/metagenomics/pipelines/4.1. This occurrence appeared in following analyses: SSU taxonomy from analyses https://www.ebi.ac.uk/metagenomics/analyses/MGYA00206976#taxonomic.

My other question is how can we give credit to people who took specific measurements (environmental packages)? e.g. The personnel who measured the biomass.

I am really glad that there are efforts to align DwC and MIxS!! And I agree that documentation is key to fixing this issue. Thanks again!!

[ramonawalls]

Thank you for clarifying, @79-6d. I should have read this more carefully before responding. I am going to take up the issue of software with the GBWG group to see if/how DwC and GGBN are handling it.

For crediting people who worked on various aspects of a project, I suspect that DC:contributor is the best term to use. We will need to consider if/how to use Dublin Core terms with MIxS.

Great questions!

[ymgan]

Thank you for clarifying, @79-6d. I should have read this more carefully before responding.

No worries, I appreciate your reply! I didn't say more during the meeting because I wanted to double check the information I received.

I am going to take up the issue of software with the GBWG group to see if/how DwC and GGBN are handling it.

Thank you so much for bringing this matter to GBWG group, appreciate it!

For crediting people who worked on various aspects of a project, I suspect that DC:contributor is the best term to use. We will need to consider if/how to use Dublin Core terms with MIxS.

There is also measurementDeterminedBy from DwC, but it is part of the Measurement or fact extension. Just mention it here in case if it could be useful for the discussion with GBWG. Thank you so much!!

Identifier	http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/measurementDeterminedBy
Definition	A list (concatenated and separated) of names of people, groups, or organizations who determined the value of the MeasurementOrFact.
Comments	Recommended best practice is to separate the values in a list with space vertical bar space ( | ).
Examples	Rob Guralnick, Peter Desmet | Stijn Van Hoey