The document discusses the importance of data standards and reporting standards for enabling data sharing and reproducible research in omics studies. It notes that three types of standards - minimum reporting requirements, semantics like nomenclatures and terminologies, and data formats - allow unambiguous representation and communication of experimental information. Many efforts are working on developing such standards, but the field is complex with a wide variety of standards being developed by different groups. Better coordination is needed between these efforts to help researchers navigate the "sea of standards" and determine which ones to use.

1. Susanna-Assunta Sansone, PhD Team Leader, University of Oxford, UK Biocuration, 11 th -14 th October 2010, Tokyo, Japan Omics Data Sharing BioSharing: on Data Policies’s Plans and Reporting Standards Innovative technology accelerating research

10. Escalating number of efforts (omics domain), e.g.

12. Navigating a sea of ‘standards’

13. I work on plants, are these just for biomedical applications? Which one are mature enough for me to use or recommend? How can I get involved to propose extensions or modifications? Which tools and databases implement which one? Which one are widely accepted and recognized? What are the criteria to evaluate status and value? ...?.... ...?.... ....?... ...?.... ....?... ...?.... I use HT sequencing technologies, which one are applicable to me? Navigating a sea of ‘standards’ Which tools and databases implement which one? I use HT sequencing technologies, which one are applicable to me?

14. HT sequencing: public databases and ‘standards’ EBI NCBI ENA SRA

16. (2008) Vol 26 No 8 http://mibbi.org

18. Linking checklists to terminologies http://www.ebi.ac.uk/ontology-lookup/ http://bioportal.bioontology.org/ http://www.obofoundry.org/

19. Science (2009), Vol 326, 234-236 http://biosharing.org

23. ‘ Social engineering’ http://biosharing.org

29. Part of our software development activities Rocca-Serra et al , Bioinformatics , 2010 ISA software suite open source: www.isa-tools.org

30. Science , 2009 Bioinformatics , 2010 Nature Biotech , (invited)