BioReel--Fishing for Updated Data of Interest

by Ginger Tsueng

The third and final aim of the BioThings Renewal Grant which has been approved for funding is devoted towards the creation of a new tool which will increase the FAIRness of data made accessible by BioThings APIs. This tool is tentatively called BioReel because it will hook into different BioThings APIs and allow users to reel in updates of relevance and interest to them. Because the BioThings APIs will utilize JSON-LD for increased interoperability, data updates indirectly linked to a topic of interest to users can also be obtained through this tool.

Here's how BioReel aligns with our goals of making data more FAIR:

As a single application that simplifies and unifies subscriptions to resource updates, BioReel will make data more Findable since it will serve as a single port of entry for updated data on a number of different data resources. Every data resource included in a BioThings API can potentially provide push notifications for keeping a user up-to-date.

BioReel will make data more Accessible by serving as a single access point for all the different data served by BioThings APIs--furthermore, BioReel will provide access via all major update outlets such as HTML, email, RSS, and API.

Since BioReel will be built on top of the BioThings APIs and utilize JSON-LD, BioReel will make BioThings API data more Interoperable by providing semantically‐precise output using JSON‐LD context. In other words, users will be able to create customized alerts based on URIs of interest!

Lastly, BioReel will encourage data Reusability by preserve links back to original sources and provenance. BioReel will NOT add any new data licenses beyond the original source data.

In developing BioReel, the BioThings team hopes to improve improve scientific efficiency by delivering relevant data to the people most poised to act on it in a timely fashion.