Abstract
In this opinion paper we provide an overview of some challenges concerning data provenance in biomedical research. We reflect current literature and depict some examples of existing implicit or explicit provenance aspects in some standard data types in translational research. Furthermore, we assess the need of further data provenance standardization in biomedical informatics. Basic data provenance should provide a recall about the origin of the data, transformation process steps, support replication and presentation of the data. Even though usable concepts for the documentation of data provenance can be found in other fields as early as 2005, the penetration rate in biomedical projects and in the biomedical literature is quite low. The awareness for the necessity of basic data provenance has to be raised, the education of data managers has to be further improved.
About the authors
Department of Medical Informatics, University Medical Center Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
Department of Medical Informatics, University Medical Center Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
Department of Medical Informatics, University Medical Center Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
Department of Medical Informatics, University Medical Center Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
Department of Medical Informatics, University Medical Center Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
Department of Medical Informatics, University Medical Center Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
Department of Medical Informatics, University Medical Center Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
Head of WG Infrastructure for Translational Research, Department of Medical Informatics, University Medical Center Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
Acknowledgement
Some Aspects of this article were presented at the HEC 2016 conference and were cited accordingly [1].
This work was supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) in the context of the following projects: DZHK 81Z7300173 and 81X1300101, GenoPerspektiv 01GP1402, sysINFLAME 01ZX1306C, myPathSem 031L0024A and IDRT1/2 by the TMF/BMBF grant 01GI1003 as well as the German Research Foundation (DFG) within the grant for the Collaborative Research Centre (SFB) 1002, subproject INF.
©2017 Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
