Minimum Information Standards

Minimum Information (MI) standards or reporting guidelines specify the minimum amount of meta data (information) and data required to meet a specific aim or aims. Usually the aim is to provide enough meta data and data to enable the unambiguous reproduction and interpretation of an experiment. MI guidelines are normally informal human readable specifications that inform the development of formal data models (e.g. XML or UML), data exchange formats (e.g. FuGE, MAGE-ML, MAGE-TAB) or knowledge models such as an ontology (e.g. OBI, MGED-Ontology).

MI standards are developed by working bodies of practitioners working in a particular scientific domain. The MI standards listed below are all from the life sciences, largely driven by the development of high throughput experimental technologies.

These MI standards groups have been brought together in 2007 to form the "Minimum Information about a Biomedical or Biological Investigation" (MIBBI) umbrella community. More information about the MIBBI initiative and the MIBBI Foundry can be found below and on the MIBBI homepage

Famous quotes containing the words minimum, information and/or standards:

    There are ... two minimum conditions necessary and sufficient for the existence of a legal system. On the one hand those rules of behavior which are valid according to the system’s ultimate criteria of validity must be generally obeyed, and on the other hand, its rules of recognition specifying the criteria of legal validity and its rules of change and adjudication must be effectively accepted as common public standards of official behavior by its officials.
    —H.L.A. (Herbert Lionel Adolphus)

    Many more children observe attitudes, values and ways different from or in conflict with those of their families, social networks, and institutions. Yet today’s young people are no more mature or capable of handling the increased conflicting and often stimulating information they receive than were young people of the past, who received the information and had more adult control of and advice about the information they did receive.
    James P. Comer (20th century)

    Chief among our gains must be reckoned this possibility of choice, the recognition of many possible ways of life, where other civilizations have recognized only one. Where other civilizations give a satisfactory outlet to only one temperamental type, be he mystic or soldier, business man or artist, a civilization in which there are many standards offers a possibility of satisfactory adjustment to individuals of many different temperamental types, of diverse gifts and varying interests.
    Margaret Mead (1901–1978)