Challenges in biocuration

Biocuration can be challenging due to the variety of activities involved in the role of a biocurator. Some specific challenges of biocuration are outlined below.

Standardisation

It’s important to consider standardisation from the start of a project. There are many different standards available which are used to describe metadata, identifiers, semantics, relations between entities and more. Yet, sometimes it may also be necessary to create a new standard. Knowing what is available from the start is very important.

Capturing and visualising data

Biocuration can often involve the communication and representation of complex data. It is necessary to consider the target audience when both creating visualisations of data and providing files in formats for relevant users.

Keeping up with new data

Every year the number of peer-reviewed publications increases, it is not possible for biocurations to manually review all relevant publications. Therefore both semi-automated and automated approaches are employed to review and extract information from publications.

Semi-automated approaches include quality control by biocurators, whereas automated approaches include to human quality control. Regardless of the approach, it is important to make the steps taken clear to users of the data.

Incomplete or inaccurate data

Sometimes biocurators don’t have all the information that they want or need to curate some data. Data can also change over time. Biocurators can only work with the information that is available and occasionally that means not having enough information to curate the data.

Legacy data

Data isn’t always maintained forever, for example the funding for a project may expire but the website showing the data may remain available. It is important to communicate when the data was last updated and the state of the project. The data may still be useful as a reflection of what was known at the time and it is up to the end user to make that decision for themselves, given all the pertinent information.

Lack of funding and resources

In curation, lack of funding and resources can be an issue in both academia and industry. It can help to include backup plans when you start your initial planning.

To learn more about these challenges, view the slides from the session Challanges in Biocuration that took place at the course Practical biocuration.