Biocuration with insufficient resources and fixed timelines

Abstract

Biological curation, or biocuration, is often studied from the perspective of creating and maintaining databases that have the goal of mapping and tracking certain areas of biology. However, much biocuration is, in fact, dedicated to finite and time-limited projects in which insufficient resources demand trade-offs. This typically more ephemeral type of curation is nonetheless of importance in biomedical research. Here, I propose a framework to understand such restricted curation projects from the point of view of return on curation (ROC), value, efficiency and productivity. Moreover, I suggest general strategies to optimize these curation efforts, such as the 'multiple strategies' approach, as well as a metric called overhead that can be used in the context of managing curation resources.

Figure 1

Relationship between precision and overhead. As precision decreases, overhead grows quickly and inversely to precision.

Figure 2

(a) ‘Multiple strategies’ approach in the precision-recall space. Strategy A can take the role of ‘high recall’ strategy, while C that of ‘high precision’ and B that of ‘compromise.’ A new strategy D is inferior to the set of strategies A, B and C, because it falls into the area covered (AC) by these strategies. (b) Adjustable strategy. (c) ‘Multiple strategies’ approach involving an adjustable strategy (defined by the line) and a non-adjustable strategy (defined by the dot). (d) Adjustable strategy in the overhead-recall space.