Reimagining a sustainable data network to
accelerate agricultural research and discovery
(Award Abstract # 2126334)
Project Summary
Fueled by the generation of larger and more complex genomic, genetic, and breeding data (GGB), advances in agricultural science are increasingly led by data-driven discovery. When data are correctly stored, described, integrated, and shared, they can be easily found and reused, increasing their value for the global research community.
Ensuring high-quality agricultural data that comply with the Findable, Interoperable, Accessible, and Reusable (FAIR) principles is the mission of AgBioData. This RCN project will bring together the agricultural biological sciences to identify how to improve data management, curation, and stewardship at scale. We will create a network of GGB Databases, researchers, scholarly publishers, and funders to advance data access, interoperability, reusability, and sustainability. The products of this network will expedite and facilitate research outcomes for AgBioData member database stakeholders, with the ultimate goal of enabling food security through agricultural research.
Project aims
Our overall mission to promote FAIR principles in agricultural research builds on four major steps:
- Establish working groups (WGs) to identify the current major issues related to data sharing and management and develop community standards for FAIR data in agriculture.
- Expand the network to include key stakeholders, including researchers, funders, and publishers, and work with them to refine and implement standards.
- Develop educational materials to train researchers about FAIR data standards and best practices.
- Create a roadmap for a sustainable integrated database ecosystem that honors the needs of individual research communities, including those for new and emerging species, while incorporating database standardization to promote a unified user experience across databases.
Project activities
Working Groups
The best way to identify the issues related to data archiving and management is through an open discussion among all the stakeholders that generate, use, curate, and manage data in agriculture. We currently have eight working groups focusing on different subjects related to FAIR data in agriculture. Working group participants are members of the global research community, including database scientists, agricultural researchers, data librarians, bioinformaticians, and publishers.
If you want to know more about our working groups, you can visit their webpage (see below), contact the working groups' chairs, or email agbiodata@gmail.com.
- Data Federation Training
- Data Reuse
- Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Recruiting
- Education
- FAIR Scientific Literature
- Genome Assembly and Annotation Nomenclature
- Ontologies
- Public Genetic Resources
- Standards for Genetic Variation
- Sustainability
Community workshops
AgBioData 2022 Community Workshop
To ensure effective communication among member databases on the FAIR data issues, we had a three-day free online workshop on March 15-16-17, 2022. The goal of the all-hands meeting was to provide a forum for the working groups to pose questions and gather feedback from the AgBioData community, including members of the other working groups. Each day had a two-hour session, with short presentations from selected working groups at the beginning, followed by breakout sessions, where WG and non-WG members met and discussed relevant topics and a brief reporting period at the end.
You can find the talk schedule and recording links here!
Our External Advisory Committee (EAC)
The EAC comprises research community members with expertise in relevant areas such as generating and managing GGB data, implementing the FAIR principles, diversity and inclusion, and educational outreach. We meet with EAC annually to assess our grant progress and seek advice on specific aims and needs.
Meet our EAC members!
- Robert W. Cottingham, Group Leader at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and member of KBase: The United States Department of Energy Systems Biology Knowledgebase
- Anne Kwitek, Professor at the Medical College of Wisconsin and member of the Alliance for Genome Resources Consortium
- James Koltes, Assistant Professor at Iowa State University and member of the Agricultural Genome to Phenome Initiative
- Marie-Angelique Laporte, Associate Scientist at the Alliance of Bioversity International - CIAT and member of the Research Data Alliance
- Susanna Sansone, Professor at the University of Oxford and member of Elixir and FAIRsharing
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