A Workshop organised by The Biotechnology Information Strategic Forum, with support from DGXII of the Commission of the European Communities, and held at CAB International, Wallingford, Oxon, UK, October 1996
Conclusions and Recommendations
Industrial users must be able to access all the data they require in a protected and secure environment. There is every sign that some form of "protected database host" offering small and large industrial users access to a combination of factual and other data under the same rules of privacy used by today's commercial database hosts would greatly benefit the biotechnology research industries. ADLIB is exploring one possible solution; others need to be examined.
New pricing paradigms and copyright regulations allowing users the right to use and re-use data are needed; especially when the data originated from the user in the first place.
Industry and R&D resources have to follow accepted quality control standards. It seems likely that, increasingly, a form of "quality control" will have to be applied to databases so that the users can be guaranteed that the data they access is reproducible. The database world might consider a similar course of action to the European culture collections which are introducing standards to their collections, management and information technology/catalogues. Databases should certainly adhere to commonly agreed standards for validity, timeliness etc.
There is evidence that the better availability of the abstracts of primary articles will improve the coverage of the secondary services so that they benefit the whole market. In this regard automatic indexing is an important aspect that should be better researched. A common service for smaller publishers to use would benefit the market. Abstracts should be linked to more databases. Networks still need to be improved and must evolve in line with the needs of the industry. It could well become the central link between the different forms of biotechnology information. To do so it will have to cover more sources and be linked to other products (ADLIB, SRS, HTML links, etc.).
Standardisation requires standards and publishers appear reluctant to use standards for their own projects. The ADLIB project has produced a Database Manual where the different databases cross-reference their structures and terminologies. Something akin to this in the primary field might help.
A stable environment to plan and work on bioinformatics and the surrounding biotechnology information strategies is needed. The BTSF should expand its membership, adding more users, infrastructure providers, hosts and libraries, and increasingly debate common needs and standards.
Publishers and users should agree standards for "reference works". These need to be archived for both their commercial life, and for the future of science.