Influenza Research Database

General information about the database

The database we chose is the Influenza Research Database

Type of Database

• What biological information (type of data) does it contain? (sequence, structure, model organism, or specialty [what?])
• What type of data source does it have?
  • primary versus secondary ("meta")
  • curated versus non-curated
  • electronic versus human curation
  • in-house staff versus community curation

Maintenance

• What individual or organization maintains the database?

1. • public versus private
   • large national or multinational entity or small lab group

Scientific quality of the database

1. Does the content appear to completely cover its content domain?
   • How many records does the database contain?
   • What claims do the database owners make about coverage in the corresponding paper?
2. What species are covered in the database?
3. Is the database content useful? I.e., what biological questions can it be used to answer?
4. Is the database content timely?
   • Is there a need in the scientific community for such a database at this time?
   • Is the content covered by other databases already?
   • When did the database first go online?
   • How often is the database updated?
   • When was the last update?

General utility of the database to the scientific community

1. Are there links to other databases? Which ones?
2. Is it convenient to browse the data?
3. Is it convenient to download the data?
   • In what file formats are the data provided?
   • Are they standard or non-standard formats?
4. Evaluate the “user-friendliness” of the database: can a naive user quickly navigate the website and gather useful information?
   • Is the website well-organized?
   • Does it have a help section or tutorial?
   • Are the search options sensible?
   • Run a sample query. Do the results make sense?
5. Access: Is there a license agreement or any restrictions on access to the database?

Summary judgment

1. Would you direct a colleague unfamiliar with the field to use it?
2. Is this a professional or hobby database?

Some Definitions

• Electronic curation occurs when someone writes a program to add information to a database record from another database.
• Manual curation occurs when a human reviews the information being added to a record to validate it as true.
  • In-house is when the human works for the database organization.
  • Community is when the database allows members of the scientific community that don't work for the database organization to add information to the record.