The JERM (Just Enough Results Model) allows us to exchange, interpret and compare between different types of data and results files across SysMO.

The JERM is being developed to model experiments, data and results and the relationships between these and other assets, such as SOPs, protocols and models

The JERM addresses the questions:

1. What is the minimum information required to find the data?
2. what is the minimum amount of information required to interpret the data?

The initial JERM pilot will be released in May 2009. This pilot will show the exchange of data between a few SysMO projects using microarray and metabolomics data

Data files will be kept by host institutions (i.e. the SysMO project consortium systems) and accessed through the SEEK Assets Catalogue. The JERM extractor is the translator between the native formats of data files on external sites (i.e. spreadsheets) and the JERM central schema. This allows the extraction of related data from different places. Any data extraced through the JERM is subject to the same access control settings as any other asset.

Different types of data will require different JERM extractors, as will different types of project storage systems (i.e. wiki, eGroupware, relational database). This could potentially be a bottleneck in development. To combat this problem, we are building on exisitng “minimal models” wherever possible and encouraging groups and projects to adopt these.

The use of controlled vocabularies for naming metabolites, genes, proteins and other biological entities is also being encouraged to avoid ambiguity and enable like-for-like comparisons. A list of available controlled vocabularies can be found in the ontologies_audit