Have your say on new activities to improve data submission to global repositories

Submission of 'omics data and associated contextual metadata to global data repositories is considered best practice when it comes to long term preservation and subsequent findability and reusability of these data. 

Our community consultations have teased out some of the challenges faced by Australian-based researchers in the submission process. A summary of the challenges in data and metadata submission and a set of recommendations for how to address these challenges has been published, Omics Data Publishing to International Repositories from Australia.

Australian BioCommons is collaborating with the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) to address these challenges, and we are currently investigating the value of bringing EMBL-EBI / European Nucleotide Archive (ENA) team members to Australia for a variety of events (in early 2025) including:

• Training workshops for Data Submission:

  • How to submit data to ENA, including:

    • Genome assemblies and annotations

    • Metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs)

    • OTU/eDNA-derived data

• Sessions to provide feedback on existing documentation:

  • An opportunity to provide feedback directly to the ENA team on existing documentation for data submission, retrieval, and analysis. Your insights and suggestions will help improve the user experience and address common pain points.

• Hands-on sessions to trial community-driven documentation design:

  • An opportunity to work alongside the ENA team and fellow researchers in a collaborative effort to trial community-driven documentation design for the data submission process. Your direct involvement will contribute to improving the usability, and accessibility of EMBL-EBI resources.

We’d love to know what you think of these ideas, and whether you’d like to participate by completing the Expression of Interest form by 14 June 2024.