The Rome Agenda - Mouse research and data sharing

I, too, took an interest in the opinion piece published in the September 10th issue of Nature in which members of the mouse research community who met in Rome shared their opinions on the issue of post-publication sharing of data. The two biggest problems that the Rome meeting identified as barriers to the full exploitation of mouse-related research are the lack of utilization of public mouse repositories and the overly restrictive material transfer agreements. Participants in the Rome meeting agreed that the members of the mouse research community, journals, and funding agencies need to work together to find solutions to the issues that hinder data sharing.

With regard to access to data associated with formal publications, the Rome meeting had four suggestions. The first was that on publication, the relevant mice and embryonic stem cells should be deposited in a public repository within a specified time period, and that funders should be willing to cover to cost of such deposits. Secondly, the Rome meeting recommended that the explanation of where and how to access data resources related to a publication be made a mandatory component of that publication. Thirdly, journals and funding agencies should take a firmer stand with regard to existing data sharing policies, clearly explaining said policies and the consequences of noncompliance, and take consistent action to enforce those policies. Finally, plans for data and materials-sharing should be made requisite parts of funding proposals and a consideration in the award of funding.

With regard to data sharing infrastructure and standards, the Rome meeting had less concrete suggestions. The Rome agenda "encourage[s] further investment and recommend[s] that public database coverage and stability be looked at in a coordinated way by funding organizations and the community with increased urgency," but had no more specific suggestions as to how resource-sharing infrastructures could be improved. They also highlighted the importance of data standardization and metadata in making data openly accessible, and called for the creation of better tools for data retrieval, mining, and computation.

The issues raised by the Rome meeting touch on many of the same issues that have been present in our readings: issues of metadata, standardized data formatting, the underuse of data depositories, and the need for a return to the principles of open science. Indeed, the Rome meeting asserted that the solutions to many of the problems underlying data sharing could be found in the creation of a research commons, defined as "a set of resources available to all scientists, either as part of the public domain or on standard terms and conditions that facilitate scientific collaborations, efficient reuse of materials and data, and the dissemination of knowledge." In essence this is what all proponents of data sharing in the sciences have called for, showing that the same basic principles need to underlie the infrastructures of the different branches of the scientific community, and that the major barriers to data sharing are common to all.