MicrobiomeDB Week 5

General information about the database

2. What type (or types) of database is it?

1)What biological information (type of data) does it contain? (sequence, structure, model organism, or specialty [what?])

2)What type of data source does it have? primary versus secondary ("meta")? curated versus non-curated? if curated, is it electronic versus human curation? if human curation, is it in-house staff versus community curation?

3.What individual or organization maintains the database?

• 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?

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?

5.How current is the database?

• 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

3. Is it convenient to download the data?

• In what file formats are the data provided?
• What type of files, indicated by the file extension (e.g., .txt, .xml., etc.)?
• Are they standard or non-standard formats? (i.e., are they following an approved standard for that type of data)?

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?