The Translational Data Catalog - discoverable biomedical datasets

Abstract

The discoverability of datasets resulting from the diverse range of translational and biomedical projects remains sporadic. It is especially difficult for datasets emerging from pre-competitive projects, often due to the legal constraints of data-sharing agreements, and the different priorities of the private and public sectors. The Translational Data Catalog is a single discovery point for the projects and datasets produced by a number of major research programmes funded by the European Commission. Funded by and rooted in a number of these European private-public partnership projects, the Data Catalog is built on FAIR-enabling community standards, and its mission is to ensure that datasets are findable and accessible by machines. Here we present its creation, content, value and adoption, as well as the next steps for sustainability within the ELIXIR ecosystem.

Fig. 1

The Data Catalog Data Model. The model links the core data entities - Project, Study and Dataset - via directional relationships. Each core entity contains a set of relevant properties.

Fig. 2

An example of a FAIRplus Evaluation result. The FAIRplus Evaluation panel lists the evaluation method used and the evaluation results, as well as links to the full assessment and the dataset (if publicly available).

Fig. 3

Architecture diagram for the ELIXIR Luxembourg data ecosystem.

Fig. 4

Illustration of the new Data Catalog user interface. This figure shows the dataset page for one of the Roche Immunomics datasets, part of the imSAVAR project (https://www.imi.europa.eu/projects-results/project-factsheets/imsavar), including the linking panels for the Project and Study pages, the general information panel with various metadata values including Experiment Types and Sample Types, and the Data Use Restrictions panel. The page also highlights the FAIRplus Evaluated badge.

Fig. 5

An example of the page headers showing the Bioschemas integration for the OncoTrack dataset. The header snippet shows the instantiation of the Bioschemas Dataset profile for the ONCOTRACK (http://www.imi.europa.eu/projects-results/project-factsheets/onco-track) dataset, found at https://datacatalog.elixir-luxembourg.org/e/dataset/64f33e4f-0d6d-4062-86c5-9c3db4e3a99a.