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http://www.cellml.org/Members/jlaw060/CurationStatusRepresentation

Dear CellML Community,

As the cellml.org model repository curator, I spend a lot of time
thinking about how we need to represent the information that I generate
regarding the curation status of models.

Almost all information is useless when out of context. For example: an
image of a cockle shell at 40x magnification might look similar to a
satellite image of a mountain range from space. The job of a curator of
any information resource, whether it be a museum or an internet database
of biological data, is to provide the context to the information. In our
terminology, this is called "curation metadata." Information in a
curated digital database must be represented in a manner that fulfills
two main requirements. Firstly, it can be read easily and quickly,
because people are busy. Secondly, it must be comprehensive.

The cellml.org model repository has (as of 11:42am, 28/08/07,) 282
unique models. All of these models have been curated* to at least some
extent. Their curation status (in brief,) however, may be anything from
"non-functional" to "can not currently be represented in CellML, as
model contains discrete delay elements," to "model produces identical
output to published model, but contains inherent unit inconsistencies."
We need an effective, flexible, and intuitive system of informing
repository users of the curation status of each model.

[* - this depends on your definition of 'curation.' Every model in the
database has at least been checked in either PCEnv or COR to see if it
loads, runs, produces an appropriate output.]

Currently we use a 'level' system, where each level is defined by a set
of conditions, and if a model meets all the conditions defined by a
particular level, it can be given an appropriate number of stars to
represent the curation level it has attained. Unfortunately I and others
working on curating these models have found that we need a much more
flexible and powerful system for representing curation status information.

I have written a document that discusses the issues with the current
system, and why it is in need of replacement, and then sets out a
proposal for a new system based on 'descriptive flags,' instead of
'levels.' You can find this document at:
http://www.cellml.org/Members/jlaw060/CurationStatusRepresentation

I must apologise for any spelling mistakes, grammatical errors or
misleading statements that you folks may encounter - I have proof-read it.

This document was created to kick-start a community discussion on these
matters. What I'm really after is as much commentary, as many flames,
and as many ideas as the community can come up with on how you would
like to see curation information represented. Particularly I need some
input for the 'Questions & Considerations' section, and some more pros
and cons.

Thanks very much.

Kind regards,
James Lawson

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• [cellml-discussion] [input requested] cellml.org model curation: representing the curation status of models, James Lawson, 08/28/2007

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