COMMENTS
Think of Comments as electronic letters to the editor. They provide an opportunity for readers to respond to any of the articles in the journal. Comments offer an opportunity for feedback, debate and the promotion of ideas for future articles.
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All Comments published in the past 84 days are shown below. You can also read responses published in the last
4,
7,
14,
21,
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Comments published in the past 84 days:
2 Commentss
published for 1 article.
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Comments |
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Editorial:
DATABASE: A new forum for biological databases and curation
- Landsman et al. (26 March 2009)
[Full text]
[PDF]
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Availability and downloadable
- David Landsman, et al.
(30 September 2009)
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Define Publicly Available
- Peter D Karp
(30 September 2009)
 Read every Comments to this article
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Editorial:
DATABASE: A new forum for biological databases and curation
Landsman et al. (26 March 2009)
[Full text]
[PDF]
|
DATABASE: A new forum for biological databases and curation
Availability and downloadable |
30 September 2009 |
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David Landsman,
Editor-in-Chief
DATABASE,
Robert Gentleman, Janet Kelso, and Francis Ouellette
Send comment to journal:
Re: Availability and downloadable
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In his first question, Peter asks about the availability of databases
in DATABASE: DATABASE is a journal that publishes articles about databases
and software that are publicly AND FREELY available to all.
The second question in this comment addresses a different issue;
whether DATABASE only accepts manuscripts describing databases which are
fully downloadable. While desirable in principle, "fully downloadable" may
sometimes be impractical for specific databases. DATABASE therefore
encourages all authors to make their databases fully downloadable (in
multiple formats, if possible) at or before submission. In all cases,
authors are also encouraged to work with scientists who request the
complete data, or specific sections of the database available for
download.
Conflict of Interest:
None declared |
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DATABASE: A new forum for biological databases and curation
Define Publicly Available |
30 September 2009 |
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Peter D Karp,
Director, Bioinformatics Research Group
Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA
Send comment to journal:
Re: Define Publicly Available
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"In addition, it will be a condition of publication that all
databases and software described in DATABASE articles are made publicly
available."
By "publicly available," do the authors mean freely available to all?
Or freely available to academics only? Or simply that the database must
be available, perhaps for a fee to all?
Personally I do not have a strong view on the preceding,
as the possibility of charging a fee means that a database
could be independent of government funding and self
supporting, which could be a good thing. On the other
hand, we would expect reviewers to be able to inspect
the database as part of reviewing the publication, and
we would expect them to not have to pay a fee as part of
the review process. Although this issue could be
circumvented if the database provided free guest access
to anyone for a limited period.
Also, must a database be fully downloadable to be
publishable in Databases? In my opinion, any
form of access short of fully downloadable compromises
the value of a database.
Conflict of Interest:
None declared |
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