Standards in Genomic Sciences: New beginnings to reflect the association between the journal and BMC

摘要

Five years ago, we began the public phase of an experi- ment in open access publishing, aimed at addressing a perceived gap that was emerging in the field of genomics 1,2. Companion papers, which were a staple of the field early on, were no longer considered an essential part be- cause high-impact general interest journals no longer considered sequencing an entire genome a remarkable feat or worthy of publication. Even specialty journals would only publish such articles if they fit within their scope. The net result was that new genome sequences were rapidly accumulating in public databases but lack- ing formal publications that would inform readers of the rationale for why the sequence was generated, or a de- scription of the methods used to produce and annotate the sequence and contextual information about the source organism, its habitat and its utility or its putative role in nature. While the potential value of viewing each genome as part of a larger collection rather than in isola- tion was obvious, the opportunity to do was quickly fading because there was no publication in which this informa- tion could be reported in a consistent and uniform man- ner 3. In response to this need, the Genomic Standards Consortium (GSC) launched Standards in Genomic Sciences (SIGS) 4.